smoke could be seen the scars of furious
battle, splintered masts and shivered yards, tattered sails and yawning
bulwarks, and great gaps even of the solid side; and above the ruck of
smoke appeared the tricolor flag upon the right hand and the left, and
the Union-jack in the middle.

"She've a'got more than she can do, I reckon," said an old man famous in
the lobster line; "other a one of they is as big as she be, and two to
one seemeth onfair odds. Wish her well out of it--that's all as can be
done."

"Kelks, you're a fool," replied the ancient navyman, steadying his
spy-glass upon a ledge of rock. "In my time we made very little of that;
and the breed may be slacked off a little, but not quite so bad as that
would be. Ah! you should a' heard what old Keppel--on the twenty-seventh
day of July it was, in the year of our Lord 1778. Talk about Nelson! to
my mind old Keppel could have boxed his compass backward. Not but what
these men know how to fight quite as well as need be nowadays. Why, if I
was aboard of that there frigate, I couldn't do much more than she have
done. She'll have one of them, you see if she don't, though she look to
have the worst of it, till you comes to understand. The Leader her name
is, of thirty-eight guns, and she'll lead one of they into Portsmouth,
to refit."

It was hard to understand the matter, in its present aspect, at all as
the ancient sailor did; for the fire of the Leda ceased suddenly, and
she fell behind the others, as if hampered with her canvas. A thrill of
pain ran through all the gazing Britons.

"How now, old Navy-Mike?" cried the lobster man. "Strike is the word,
and no mistake. And small blame to her either. She hathn't got a sound
thread to draw, I do believe. Who is the fool now, Mike? Though vexed I
be to ask it."

"Wait a bit, old lobster-pot. Ah, there now, she breezes! Whistle for
a wind, lads, whistle, whistle. Sure as I'm a sinner, yes! She's laying
her course to board the Frenchman on the weather quarter. With a slant
of wind she'll do it, too, if it only holds two minutes. Whistle on your
nails, my boys, for the glory of old England."

In reply to their shrill appeal--for even the women tried to whistle--or
perhaps in compulsory sequence of the sun, the wind freshened briskly
from the sunny side of east. The tattered sails of the brave ship
filled, with the light falling through them upon one another, the head
swung round at the command of helm, the pennons