to the possibility that their forebodings might
come true, and that I might therefore be looking upon their dear faces
for the last time. To bid them farewell, therefore, and tear myself
from their clinging arms was a most painful business; and it was not
until I had returned to the _Dolphin_, and was busying myself about the
final preparations for our departure, that I was able in some degree to
recover my equanimity and get rid of the troublesome lump that would
keep rising in my throat.

CHAPTER TWO.

A FOGGY NIGHT IN THE CHANNEL.

The town clock was striking four when, the muster roll having been
called and all hands being found to be on board, we cast off the shore-
fasts and, under the influence of a light, keen, frosty air from the
northward, went gliding down the harbour under mainsail and flying-jib,
fully two hundred people following us along the quay and cheering us as
we went. The _Dolphin_ was the first privateer that Weymouth had fitted
out since the last declaration of war, and the enthusiasm was intense;
for, in addition to the foregoing circumstance, she was the largest,
most powerful, and most heavily-manned privateer that had ever sailed
out of the port; our full complement numbering no less than ninety, all
told, including a surgeon, every one of whom was either a Weymouth or a
Portland man; consequently there were plenty of friends and relatives to
see us start and bid us God-speed.

Upon clearing the harbour all sail was at once made upon the schooner,
our object being, of course, to reach the open channel as quickly as
possible--when we might hope to fall athwart a prize at any moment,--and
a noble picture we must have made as, edging away to pass out round
Portland, our noble spaces of new, white canvas were expanded one after
the other, until we were under all plain sail, to our royal.

The day had been one of those quiet grey days that occasionally occur
about the latter end of November; the sky a pallid, shapeless canopy of
colourless cloud through which the sun at long intervals became faintly
distinguishable for a few minutes at a time, then vanished again. There
was little or no wind to speak of, the faint breathing that prevailed
being from the northward. The air was very keen, the atmosphere so
thick that our horizon was contracted to a limit of scarcely three
miles, and it looked very much as though, with nightfall, we should have
a fog. The moon was a long time past the f