, boy, true!" cried Paul, slapping him affectionately on the
shoulder. "You are right about Mary; and when a lad does like a girl,
it's pleasant to see that he really does like her right heartily and
honestly, and isn't ashamed of saying so."

The _Gannet_ had altogether a picked crew, and Captain Brine was on the
lookout to give them every opportunity of distinguishing themselves.
There were, to be sure, some not quite equal to the rest. Tim Fid and
Harry Hartland had joined with True Blue, and poor Gregory Gipples had
managed still to hang on in the service, though, as his messmates
observed, he was more suited to sweep the decks than to set the Thames
on fire.

As yet the saucy little _Gannet_, as her crew delighted to call her, had
done nothing particularly to boast of, except capturing and burning a
few _chasse-marees_, looking into various holes and corners of the
French coast, exchanging shots with small batteries here and there, and
keeping the French coastguard in a very lively and active condition,
never knowing when they might receive a nine-pound round-shot in the
middle of one of their lookout towers, or be otherwise disturbed in
their nocturnal slumbers.

Captain Brine was up the coast and down the coast in every direction;
and if he could manage to appear at a point where the wind was least
likely to allow him to be, by dint of slashing at it in the offing
against a head wind, or by creeping in shore with short tacks, he was
always more pleased and satisfied, and so were his crew.

The wind was north-east, the ship's head was south; it was in the month
of March, and the weather not over balmy.

"A sail on the weather bow!" cried the lookout from the masthead.

"What is she like?" asked the second lieutenant, who had charge of the
deck.

"She looms large, sir," was the answer.

The information was notified to the Captain, who was on deck in an
instant.

Whether the stranger was friend or foe was the next question to be
ascertained. Doubts were expressed as to that point both fore and aft.
She was a frigate, that was very certain; still, without trying her with
the private signal, Captain Brine did not like to haul his wind and make
sail away from her. The nearer she drew, the more French she looked.
Eighteen guns to thirty-eight or forty, which probably the stranger
carried, was a greater disproportion than even the gallant Brine was
inclined to encounter. All hands stood ready to make sail