e ordered
to remain on the booms with their accouterments on and their muskets by
their sides. The officers still kept their glasses on the lugger, until
at last the fog came down and we could see her no more.

The officers who commanded the invalids, after a consultation with the
captain at which Bramble assisted, told off their men into two parties,
one of them being appointed to assist the seamen with their bayonets in
repelling the boarders (should the attempt be made), and the other to
fire upon them and into the deck of the vessel when she came alongside.
The Lascars were stationed at the guns, in case they might be required;
but no great dependence was placed upon their services.

By the time that these arrangements had been made, the fog had reached
the Indiaman, and we were at the same time taken aback with the easterly
breeze which brought it down to us; being near to the land, we put the
ship's head off shore. The wind continued light and the water smooth,
but the fog thickened every minute: at last we could hardly see as far
as the foremast of the vessel.

"He'll be puzzled to find us, I think," said the captain.

"He'll find us, never fear," replied Bramble. "He has calculated the
time of the fog reaching us, and he knows that we must lay our head
off-shore--to be sure, we might give him the go-by if we bore up and ran
back again to the Downs."

"I think I see myself bearing up and running away from a rascally French
privateer," said the captain. "Keep a sharp lookout there forward."

"Ay, ay, sir," replied the chief officer.

Half an hour more passed, and by our calculation the privateer should
have been on board of us, but we could see nothing of her, although the
fog had cleared up a little. The soldiers were now ordered to load their
muskets. I was on the poop with Bramble, when, happening to turn and
look aft (the very opposite direction from which the privateer was to be
expected), I saw her three lugsails looming in the mist, just on the
quarter, not half a cable's length from us. I jumped down to where the
captain was standing, and said to him, "There she is, sir, close on our
lee quarter." The captain sprang on the poop, saw the vessel, and
ordered the men to come aft in silence. The tramp of the soldiers' feet
was scarcely over when the lugger was alongside of us, her masts banging
against our main and mizzen chains as she rolled with the swell under
our lee. The Frenchmen gave a cheer, whi