g in. I cannot
understand it; but we shall soon see. If they have captured him we
shall have to recapture him, that is all!" Then, turning to the men,
who were busy securing the guns and repairing such slight damage as had
been inflicted upon our rigging, I said--

"Avast, there, with those guns! Load them again, lads, for we may have
to fight once more in a few minutes. Here is the big ship running down
upon us, and it looks very much as though she had taken the brig. Fill
your topsail, and let draw the headsheets!"

Getting sufficient way upon the schooner, we tacked and stood toward the
new-comers, passing close under the stern of the ship, with the
intention of hailing her. But before I could get the trumpet to my
lips, a figure sprang into the ship's mizzen rigging, and Christie's
well-known voice hailed--

"_Tern_ ahoy! is Mr Courtenay aboard?"

"Ay, ay," I answered; "I am here, Mr Christie. What are you doing
aboard there?"

"Why," answered Christie, "I am in charge, you know. Seeing you busy
with the brigantine, I thought I might as well try my luck at the same
time; so I managed somehow to put the brig alongside this ship, and--
and--well, _we just took her_!"

"Well done, Mr Christie!" I shouted; but before I could get out
another word, my voice was drowned in the roaring cheer that the _Terns_
gave vent to as they heard the news, told in Christie's usual gentle,
drawling tones; and by the time that the cheers had died away the two
craft had drawn so far apart that further conversation was, for the
moment, impossible.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

I BECOME THE VICTIM OF A VILLAINOUS OUTRAGE.

Making room, Christie presently hauled to the wind and hove-to; and some
ten minutes later he presented himself on board the schooner--brought
alongside by the ship's gig, manned by four of the ship's crew--to
report his own share in the incidents of the night. From this report I
gathered that, like myself, at first he had mistaken the French
privateer for Morillo's brigantine, and had also arrived at the
conclusion that the ship was a prize of the latter. He had kept a keen
watch upon the movements of the schooner until it had become apparent
that we intended to attack the supposed pirate, when he at once turned
his attention to the ship, with the object of ascertaining whether, with
such a phenomenally slow craft as the _Three Sisters_, anything could be
done with her. He believed that, with luck, it co