ke it all the worse for you, when you get on
shore. Now, I might press you all without giving you a choice, but I
don't want unwilling hands, so I will leave it to you. Which is it to
be--an English prison for two or three years, or a cruise on board the
Thetis?"

The greater part of the men at once stepped forward, and announced
their willingness to volunteer.

"Who have we here," the captain asked, looking at the three countrymen.

"They are passengers, sir," the skipper of the lugger said, with a half
smile.

A few questions brought to light the facts of the surprise while the
cargo was being landed.

"Well, my lads," the captain said, "you are in the same boat with the
rest. You were engaged in an unlawful enterprise, and in resisting his
majesty's officers. You will get some months in prison anyhow, if you
go back. You had better stay on board, and let me make men of you."

The countrymen, however, preferred a prison to a man o' war.

James Walsham had been turning over the matter in his mind. He had
certainly taken no part in the fray, but that would be difficult to
prove, and he could not account for his presence except by
acknowledging that he was there to warn them. It would certainly be a
case of imprisonment. Surely, it would be better to volunteer than
this. He had been longing for the sea, and here an opportunity opened
for him for abandoning the career his mother intended for him, without
setting himself in opposition to her wishes. Surely she would prefer
that he should be at sea for a year or two to his being disgraced by
imprisonment. He therefore now stepped forward.

"I do not belong to the lugger's crew, sir, and had nothing to do with
running their cargo, though I own I was on the spot at the time. I am
not a sailor, though I have spent a good deal of time on board fishing
boats. Mr. Horton, whom I see there, knows me, and will tell you that I
am a son of a doctor in Sidmouth. But, as I have got into a scrape, I
would rather serve than go back and stand a trial."

"Very well, my lad," the captain said. "I like your spirit, and will
keep my eye on you."

The three countrymen and four of the French sailors, who declined to
join the Thetis, were taken back to the cutter, and the Thetis at once
proceeded on her way down channel. James had given a hastily scribbled
line, on the back of an old letter which he happened to have in his
pocket, to the men who were to be taken ashore, but he had ve