True Blue had gone below to remain
with Paul Pringle. The Frenchmen soon followed him. He tried to show
by signs that his godfather was very much hurt. This was evident,
indeed. At first the men who came below were going to let him remain;
but the order soon reached them that all the English were immediately to
be removed from the brig. Not without difficulty, True Blue got leave
to assist in carrying Paul, aided by Tom Marline, who had fought his way
down below to his friend, and the black cook. With no help from the
Frenchmen, Paul was at last placed in a boat, with True Blue by his
side.

The passengers were scarcely better treated than were the seamen. The
ladies and gentlemen were bundled out of the vessel together, and were
allowed to take only such articles as they could carry in their hands.
Some of the gentlemen who spoke French expostulated.

"Very good," answered the Lieutenant. "You have chosen to lighten the
vessel of all public property, which would, at all events, have been
ours; we must make amends to ourselves by the seizure of what you call
private property."

As True Blue sat at Paul's head, his godfather looked up. "Ah, boy!" he
said with a deep sigh, "this is the worst thing that I ever thought
could happen to us; yet it's a comfort to think that it isn't our own
brave frigate that has been taken, and that a number of our shipmates
haven't been struck down by the enemy's fire. But it's the thoughts of
the French prison tries me. Yet, Billy, I don't mind even that so much
as I should have done once. You are now a big strong chap, and you
won't let them make a Frenchman of you, as they might have done when you
were little, will you?"

"No, Paul; they'll have a very tough job if they try it on--that they
will," answered True Blue with a scornful laugh which perfectly
satisfied his godfather.

"What are the brutes of Englishmen talking about?" growled out one of
the Frenchmen. "Hold your tongues, dogs."

Neither Paul nor True Blue understood these complimentary remarks; but
the tone of the speaker's voice showed them that it might be more
prudent to be silent.

As soon as Captain Jones and his mates and the two midshipmen appeared
above the gangway of the French frigate, they were seized on by a party
of seamen, who threw them on the deck, knocked off their hats, out of
which they tore the cockades, and, with oaths, trampled them beneath
their feet.

In vain Captain Jones in a ma