ffle
their oars with portions of their clothing; and in another five minutes
we were heading for the small, dark blot. When we had been pulling
silently for about a quarter of an hour, a small, thin sound came
creeping across the water to us, that within another five minutes had
resolved itself into the strains of the Marseillaise played upon an
accordion and sung by a fairly good tenor voice, to which several others
were almost instantly added. That was sufficient; the craft, whatever
else she might be, was assuredly French, and we were relieved of the
anxiety of approaching a vessel uncertain as to whether she was friend
or foe. The song was sung through to the end with great enthusiasm, and
then, after a slight pause, another song was started, also French, so
far as could be made out. It was cut short, however, before a dozen
bars had been reached, by a hoarse, gruff voice loudly demanding, in
clear, unmistakable French, "what, in the name of all the saints, the
singer meant by arousing all hands at that hour of the night with his
miserable braying?" This rendered assurance doubly sure, and we
proceeded with increased caution--if that were possible--laying in all
but a single pair of oars, with the double object of resting the men as
much as possible prior to the attack, and at the same time approaching
our quarry slowly enough to allow her crew to coil away about the decks,
and go to sleep again if they would.

Paddling slowly and with the utmost circumspection, taking care that the
oars entered and left the water without the slightest splash, we were a
full hour and more traversing the distance that separated us from the
stranger; but long ere we reached her we had made her out to be a
schooner of somewhere about one hundred and forty tons, and by her taunt
spars, as well as by the fact of her being where she was,--nicely in the
track of our homeward-bound West Indiamen,--I judged her to be a
privateer. When first discovered she must have been lying nearly
broadside-on to us, but the swing of the swell gradually slewed her, as
we stealthily approached, until she presented her stern fairly at us,
affording us an admirable opportunity to get alongside her undetected.
And this we did, gliding up under her starboard quarter and alongside,
and actually climbing in on deck over her low bulwarks before the alarm
was raised. Then, from the neighbourhood of the wheel, there suddenly
arose a muttered execration in Fre