her to-morrow than we have got to-day."

"Oh, it can't be!" cried Rodd.

"Well," cried the skipper, chuckling, "we shall see who's right."

"Oh, but I don't want for us to have to stop here in this French port."

"More don't I, my lad, so we think the same there. You going to stop on
deck?"

"Yes, till dinner-time," cried Rodd, and just then the haze of rain out
seaward opened a little, revealing the brig with its tall spars and web
of rigging.

This somehow set the boy thinking about the escape from accident when
they came into port, and then of the encounter ashore, and he began
talking.

"It's no use to go down below. It's so stuffy, and I want to chat. I
say, captain, what do you think of that brig?"

"Very smartly built craft indeed, my lad--one as I should like to sail
if I could do as I liked."

"Do as you liked?" asked Rodd.

"Yes; alter her rig--make a schooner of her. But as she is she's as
pretty a vessel as I ever see--for a brig. Frenchmen don't often turn
out a boat like that."

"What should you think she is?" asked Rodd. "A merchantman?"

"No, my lad; I should say she was something of a dispatch boat, though
she aren't a man-of-war. I don't quite make her out. She's got a very
smart crew, and I saw two of her officers go aboard in some sort of
uniform, though it was too dark to quite make it out."

"But if she's a man-of-war she would carry guns, wouldn't she?" asked
Rodd.

"Well, I don't think she's a man-of-war, my lad," replied the skipper;
"but she do carry guns, and one of them's a big swivel I just saw
amidships. But men-of-war, merchantmen, and coasters, we're all alike
in a storm, and glad to get into shelter."

"Yes, it is a fine-looking brig. Is she likely to be a privateer?"

"Eh? What do you know about privateers?"

"Oh, not much," said Rodd. "But going about at Plymouth and talking to
the sailors, of course I used to hear something about them."

"Well, yes, of course," said the skipper thoughtfully, as he too swept
the drops from the front of his sou'-wester, and tried to pierce the
falling rain. "She might be a French privateer out of work, as you may
say, for their game's at an end now that the war's over. Yes, a very
smart craft."

"But do you think she's here for any particular purpose?"

"Yes, my lad; a very particular purpose."

"Ah!" cried the boy rather excitedly. "What?"

"To take care of herself and keep in harbour till the weather turns
r