out of her?"

"Ten easy with these new spars, and she can come up as close as any boat
I've ever seen--except maybe yon black snake of Torode's,"--with a jerk of
the head towards Herm. "Seen her?"

"Yes, I've seen her. How's she in bad weather?"

"Wet, I should say. We can stand a heap more than she can."

"When do you expect to get off?"

"Inside a week. Come along and have a drink. It's dry work watching these
fellows."

So we went along to the cafe just behind us, and it was while we were
sitting there, sipping our cider, and I was telling him of my last voyage
and after-journeyings, that a man came in and slapped down on the table in
front of us a printed bill which, as it turned out afterwards, concerned us
both more nearly than we knew.

"Ah!" said John Ozanne, "I'd heard of that. If we happen across him we'll
pick up that five thousand pounds or we'll know the reason why."

It was a notice sent out by one John Julius Angerstein, of Lloyds in the
City of London, on behalf of the merchants and shipowners there, offering a
reward of five thousand pounds for the capture, or proof of the
destruction, of a French privateer which had for some time past been making
great play with British shipping in the Channel and Bay of Biscay. She was
described as a schooner of one hundred and fifty tons or thereabouts, black
hull with red streak, carrying an unusually large crew and unusually heavy
metal. She flew a white flag with a red hand on it, her red figure-head was
said to represent the same device, and she was known by the name of _La
Main Rouge_.

John Ozanne folded the bill methodically and stowed it safely away in his
pocket-book.

"It'd be a fortune if we caught him full," he said thoughtfully. "They say
he takes no prizes. Just helps himself to what he wants like a highwayman,
and then sheers off and looks out for another. Rare pickings he must have
had among some of those fat East Indiamen. Here's to our falling in with
him!" and we clicked our mugs on that right hopefully.

"What weight do we carry?" I asked, in view of the Frenchman's heavy guns,
our own not being yet mounted.

"Four eighteens a-side, and one twenty-four forward and one aft. There'll
be some chips flying if we meet him, but we'll do our best to close his
fist and stop his grabbing. You're wanting to get back? Come over day after
to-morrow and give me a hand. I'll be glad of your help;" and I dropped
into my boat and pulled out into th