ook at
the stranger through his perspective glass, declared that she was
certainly French, our only hope was that darkness might shroud us
before she came within striking distance--a slender chance at the
best, for, though 'twas drawing towards dusk, the sky was
wonderfully clear.

We held on our course, there being nothing else for us to do. The
frigate loomed ever larger, and my heartbeats quickened as I
wondered what the event would be. I did not dream that we should
strike our flag as the Frenchman had done, and thought that we,
having two vessels against one, would at least make a fight of it.
But I was struck with mingled indignation and dismay when I saw the
Dolphin crowd on all sail and bear away northwards, leaving us to
our fate. I thought it a scurvy action on the part of Captain
Cawson, and Dilly could not persuade me that he could have done us
no good by remaining.

But the mate was not a whit discomposed. He swore a little, as did
the men, yet without any heat: indeed they joked among themselves
about the prison fare they would soon be starving on; and when a
shot from the frigate fell across our bows, the mate merely spat
out the quid he was chewing, and ordered the flag to be hauled
down. Ten minutes after, the frigate was on our weather quarter,
and dropping a boat, sent a crew aboard.

I was bitterly chagrined at this reversal of our fortunes, and when
the Frenchmen who had been our prisoners were released, I went very
sullenly with the rest into the boat that conveyed us to the
frigate. We were clapped under hatches, and confined in the hold, a
noisome close place, lit by a single oil lamp that stunk horribly.

"Smite me if it bean't Doggy Trang!" said the mate when the squat
towsy-headed seaman who had conducted us below had left us. "I seed
him at Plymouth a year or two ago."

I thought he was referring to the seaman, but it turned out that he
meant the captain of the vessel, a young Frenchman named
Duguay-Trouin, who was known to our men as a daring and courageous
corsair. Two years before this, they told me, when commanding the
royal frigate La Diligente of thirty-six guns, he had run among a
squadron of six English vessels in a fog, and after a stout
resistance was forced to yield, not before a ball from the Monk had
laid him low. He was carried prisoner to Plymouth, whence he had
cleverly escaped one night by scaling a wall and putting off in a
little boat.

My companions soon accommod