w many
saints to come and help him--while blackie followed him with his
snuff-box and a handkerchief, and seemed trying to console him. La
Motte, however, laughed at my apprehensions. He said that of course it
was known that I had not willingly left the ship, and that I had a right
to save my life in the best way I could. Still I was not satisfied. On
came the frigate. We pressed the schooner with all the canvas she could
carry. She walked along at a great rate, and so did the frigate. A
stern chase is a long chase, but I had very little expectation that we
should escape. If we could keep ahead till night, then we might have a
better chance.

It was well on in the afternoon when we saw two sail ahead. From the
whiteness of their canvas and the squareness of their yards, they were
evidently men-of-war. If they should prove English cruisers, we were
fairly caught in a net, and Don Whiskerandos would have very little
chance of seeing his wife and family for a long time to come. Still our
captain was a resolute man, and one who would never give in while a
prospect of escape remained. The helm was put down, and we kept up five
or six points towards the French coast, thinking that we might keep
clear of them all till night set in, and might then escape in the
darkness. The officers kept their glasses on the strangers. One was a
frigate, the other a corvette. They made sail when they saw us.
Evening was closing in. "Hurra, my lads," shouted our captain, "up go
the French colours. I thought by the cut of their canvas they were
Frenchmen, and our friends!" How strangely those words sounded in my
ears! To be glad to fall in with Frenchmen, and to call them our
friends!

Once more we altered our course. In a short time the ships of war made
out the English frigate, and allowing us to go ahead, then clewed up
their topsails and waited for her. She saw them, and nothing daunted,
under all sail stood on to close them before nightfall. Now, for the
first time, I felt a little regret that I was not on board my own ship,
she looked so proud and bold going into action against so superior a
force. Oh, how I wished that I could find myself on her deck alongside
my former shipmates, whom I pictured to myself standing at their guns,
bared to the waist, with handkerchiefs round their heads, looking stern
and grim as became men about to fight with heavy odds, yet every now and
then cutting a joke with each other in the