did not
perfectly understand where he was going."

"We have made an awful run, captain," returned the man to whom this
remark had been addressed. "That is the French king's ship, Lee-my-calm
(_Le Montcalm_), and she is standing in for the Niagara, where her owner
has a garrison and a port. We've made an awful run of it!"

"Ay, bad luck to him! Frenchman-like, he skulks into port the moment he
sees an English bottom."

"It might be well for us if we could follow him," returned the man,
shaking his head despondingly, "for we are getting into the end of a bay
up here at the head of the lake, and it is uncertain whether we ever get
out of it again!"

"Pooh, man, pooh! We have plenty of sea room, and a good English hull
beneath us. We are no Johnny Crapauds to hide ourselves behind a point
or a fort on account of a puff of wind. Mind your helm, sir!"

The order was given on account of the menacing appearance of the
approaching passage. The _Scud_ was now heading directly for the
fore-foot of the Frenchman; and, the distance between the two vessels
having diminished to a hundred yards, it was momentarily questionable if
there was room to pass.

"Port, sir, port," shouted Cap. "Port your helm and pass astern!"

The crew of the Frenchman were seen assembling to windward, and a few
muskets were pointed, as if to order the people of the _Scud_ to keep
off. Gesticulations were observed, but the sea was too wild and menacing
to admit of the ordinary expedients of war. The water was dripping from
the muzzles of two or three light guns on board the ship, but no one
thought of loosening them for service in such a tempest. Her black
sides, as they emerged from a wave, glistened and seemed to frown; but
the wind howled through her rigging, whistling the thousand notes of
a ship; and the hails and cries that escape a Frenchman with so much
readiness were inaudible.

"Let him halloo himself hoarse!" growled Cap. "This is no weather to
whisper secrets in. Port, sir, port!"

The man at the helm obeyed, and the next send of the sea drove the
_Scud_ down upon the quarter of the ship, so near her that the old
mariner himself recoiled a step, in a vague expectation that, at the
next surge ahead, she would drive bows foremost directly into the planks
of the other vessel. But this was not to be: rising from the crouching
posture she had taken, like a panther about to leap, the cutter dashed
onward, and at the next instant she was glanc