in for the land,
not unlike our friend of last week."

I agreed with him it would be prudent to avoid her. The best way to do
this was to stand close in, so that our masts should not appear above
the land. The shore was here higher and more broken than that which we
had before passed.

The stranger was drawing near, and judging from the cut of his sails I
had little doubt that he was a Frenchman. Whether or not he saw us it
was hard to say; I was afraid he did, as he was steering a course which
would inevitably cut us off. I still did not like to communicate my
fears to my wife and daughters. It must be done soon I felt, for the
nearer the stranger drew the more convinced I was that he was French.
While we were watching our supposed enemy we did not neglect to look out
for a place of refuge, and we kept scanning the coast anxiously for any
opening into which we might run to hide ourselves. My wife and
daughters suspected, from what they observed, that I did not like the
look of the stranger; and when at last I saw that it was no use
concealing from them what I suspected, Mary, I think it was, proposed
loading the boats with as many necessaries as they could carry, running
close in, and, having deserted the vessel, hiding ourselves in the woods
till our enemies had gone away.

Her sisters chimed in, and thought that it would not be at all
unpleasant to picnic in the woods for a few days, or perhaps settle
there altogether. They little dreamed of the inhospitable character of
that part of the country; still I would say nothing to damp their
courage. The breeze was fresh and from the south-west, and though it
brought up the stranger, it enabled us to stand close in shore with less
danger than if the wind had been dead on it. As far as we could judge,
there was no opening to indicate a harbour or shelter of any sort. The
big ship was approaching rapidly; I felt as if we were caught in a trap.
We had no choice now but to stand on; the wind was too much to the
westward to allow us to retrace our course, and so double on the
stranger. I thought by this time that we must be seen. We were small,
that was one thing; and another was, probably, that no one was looking
for us. If not seen now, we should be in a few minutes; of that I felt
sure. Again and again I examined the strange vessel, and became more
and more convinced that if not a government ship she was worse; one of
the large privateers which were known to