CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

BIGLEY FEELS HIS POSITION.

During the day, after leaving an adequate guard over the prisoners in
the lugger, the lieutenant came up the Gap twice, and worked hard with
his men to get our poor work-people in a more comfortable state, though
now plenty of the Ripplemouth folk had been over, and help and
necessaries were freely lent, so that the night was made fairly
comfortable for the wounded and their families. We slept in the ruins
of the counting-house, whose roof was open to the sky, for my father had
not the heart to go home and rest there; and when he sent Bigley over,
and I felt that I should like to go and keep the poor fellow company, I,
too, had not the heart to go and leave my father alone.

The next morning the lieutenant came to fetch us to breakfast on board
the lugger; but we made a very poor meal, our injuries being more
painful, and I felt weak and ill; but there was so much to see and hear
that I kept forgetting my sufferings in the interest of the time.

There were our men to go and see, and sit and talk to where they were
too poorly to get up. There was Mother Bonnet to speak to when she
started for the Bay to attend on Bigley; and I had her to see again when
she came back, all ruffled and indignant, after a verbal engagement with
our Kicksey, who would not let the old woman interfere, because she
wanted to nurse Bigley herself.

Then towards afternoon, when the lieutenant had nearly gone mad with
suspense about the frigate and at being bound to stop there with the
lugger, according to his orders, news came by a fishing boat, that there
had been a desperate engagement, and the frigate had been sunk.

But on the top of that came news by a man who was riding over from
Stinchcombe, that it was the French vessel that had been sunk.

This stopped the lieutenant just as he was putting off in the lugger,
and soon after a fresh news-bearer came in the shape of another
fisherman, who announced that the Frenchman was taken.

There was a regular cheer at this, and I saw Captain Gualtiere's brow
knit; but he passed it off, and sat with the officer straining his eyes
to the west in search of the prize to our flag.

It was no wonder that he looked as triumphant as our people seemed
chap-fallen when towards evening the frigate appeared alone, with every
stitch of canvas that she could show spread to the western breeze, but
the spy-glasses showed that she was in anything but good tr