their friends; and were soon fighting in the
front line. But the French resistance was now almost over. Their
captain had fallen and, in five minutes, the last of them threw
down their arms and surrendered; while a great shout went up from
the crew of the schooner. The French flag was hauled down and, as
soon as the prisoners had been sent below, an ensign was brought
from the schooner, fixed to the flag halliards above the tricolor,
and the two hoisted together.

The captain had already turned to the two men who had come so
opportunely to his assistance.

"I do not know who you are, or where you come from, men, but you
have certainly saved us from capture. I did not know it was the
Annette until it was too late to draw off, or I should not have
engaged her; for she is the strongest lugger that sails out of
Granville, and carries double our weight of metal, with twice as
strong a crew; but whoever you are, I thank you most heartily. I am
half owner of the schooner, and should have lost all I was worth,
to say nothing of perhaps having to pass the next five years in a
French prison."

"We are two British officers," Terence said. "We have escaped from
a French prison, and were making our way to Jersey when we saw that
lugger coming after us, and should certainly have been captured had
you not come up; so we thought the least we could do was to lend
you a hand."

"Well, gentlemen, you have certainly saved us. Jacques Bontemps,
the captain of the Annette, was an old acquaintance of mine. He
commanded a smaller craft before he got the Annette, and we have
had two or three fights together.

"So it was you whom I saw in that little boat! Of course, we made
out that the lugger was chasing you, though why they should be
doing so we could not tell; but we thought no more about you after
the fight once began, and were as astonished as the Frenchmen when
you swept their bow. I just glanced round and saw what looked like
two French fishermen, and thought that you must be two of the
lugger's crew who, for some reason or other, had turned the guns
against their own ship.

"It will be a triumph, indeed, for us when we enter Saint Helier.
The Annette has been the terror of our privateers. Fortunately she
was generally away cruising, and many a prize has she taken into
Granville. I have had the luck to recapture two of them, myself;
but when she is known to be at home we most of us keep in port, for
she is a good deal more tha