"When I saw the craft first, she was about a couple of cables' lengths
directly astern of us," answered Leicester.

"She was, eh!" remarked the officer. "Well, there will be a pretty row
to-morrow about her being allowed to slip in undetected. I will send a
boat on board your own ship at once, to remove the prisoners; and, that
done, I will tell off a crew to man your prize for you."

This was accordingly done, and an hour after the arrival of the
_Throstle_ upon the scene, George and his crew were once more
comfortably established on board their own ship.

On the following morning the affair was officially reported to the
commodore, who put himself into a tremendous passion about it, declaring
that such an occurrence reflected indelible disgrace upon the whole
British navy, and that he would bring to court-martial every one of the
officers belonging to the convoying ships;--which, however, seeing that
at bottom he was a fine, good-hearted old fellow, he never did. And
after abusing everybody else, he sent for George, complimented him upon
his gallantry publicly on the quarterdeck of the _Tremendous_, offered
to obtain a commission for him (an offer which our hero was foolish
enough to decline), and gave his hearty consent to the proposed
borrowing of a prize-crew.

But the affair did not by any means end here; for on the following
night, which was almost as dark as the preceding one, three ships
belonging to the merchant-fleet under convoy gave an unusual and
altogether extraordinary amount of trouble to the captains of the
gun-brigs by their persistent straggling; and, suspicion being at length
aroused, they were all found to be in the hands of French prize-crews,
having been surprised and captured by the _Jeune Virginie_ immediately
prior to her unsuccessful attempt upon the _Aurora_. Had they been only
a little less anxious to effect their escape, they might, as the event
proved, have accomplished it without the slightest difficulty.

About 2 p.m. on the day following the recapture of these three vessels,
the weather being at the time stark calm, with an overcast sky, the
signal to "shorten sail and prepare for bad weather," was exhibited on
board the commodore's ship--the old _Tremendous_. It was very difficult
to make out the signal, the flags hanging from the masthead in such
close, motionless folds that it was almost impossible to identify them;
so, after a long and anxious scrutiny of them through hi