us little waiting; and as soon as day
broke, the first thing we saw, within a league of us, and bearing right
across our course, was the stranger in full chase. She was a brigantine
fully armed, and carrying a great spread of sail, but to our surprise
she flew not the English but the French colours.

On seeing this, Captain Cochin quickly hauled down the English flag, and
ran up that of his own country; but he disregarded the stranger's signal
to come to, and held on with every breath of wind he could get into his
canvas.

"Set a thief to catch a thief," they say. And so, the French privateer
suspecting the French pirate to have good reason for running away,
pressed on all sail, and gave full chase.

What surprised me most was to see that she was fast coming up on us. I
had never contemplated such a thing as the _Arrow_ being caught by
anything on water; but I had to admit now I was wrong. If the _Arrow_
was a hare, the Frenchman was a greyhound.

However, there was no time to speculate on questions of speed. The
question was, should we show fight, or lie-to and explain ourselves?
There was no hope of a ship like ours, so slenderly manned, being able
to capture or even disable our heavily-armed pursuer. On the other
hand, to surrender meant losing all our booty, and possibly our ship
into the bargain; for the French, when it suited their purpose, were
ready enough to take advantage of a chance of pressing a smart craft
like the _Arrow_ into their own service, especially as she bore an
English name, and was known to have preyed pretty impartially on friend
and foe alike.

An eager consultation took place on deck, some urging one course, some
another, while some proposed to throw the cargo overboard, and one or
two to scuttle the ship.

However, as good luck would have it, there was a fifth way out of the
difficulty which we had little dreamed of.

"A sail on the weather-quarter!" suddenly shouted our watch.

The captain and mate went aloft to view her, and presently reported an
English frigate in full sail bearing down in our direction. She seemed
to be coming fast, across the wind, and by the look of her was a regular
line-of-battle ship, with a double row of guns snarling from her ports.

"That settles us," said Captain Cochin, rapidly recovering his spirits.
"While the lion and the tiger fight, Mister Fox slips off with the
booty. Way there; keep her as she goes, master; and good-day to you,
monsie