“Messieurs!” said he. “There will soon be a leetle affair in which the balls will fly. You will be better off in the hold, where they cannot reach you so easily as up here.”
“Sir!” replied the English privateer-captain. “I go below with the greatest of pleasure, for I am now certain of my liberty. Au revoir!”
“Do not count your chickens before they hatch!” cried the Frenchman, after his retreating form.
The British vessels were the Hampton Court of seventy guns, and the Sunderland and Dreadnought of sixty each; so, being three to two, they should have had a fairly easy victory over the Frenchmen. But the Sunderland lost a spar overboard, and dropped astern; so it left but two to two: an even affair.
Alas for gallant Captain Walker! Although the Englishmen came near the two French men-of-war, they hung about without firing a shot; allowed the Frenchmen to sail on unmolested, and thus carry their astonishingly rich treasure into Brest, amid wild and enthusiastic cheering of their crews, and groans of disappointment from the English prisoners.
Yet these same prisoners had little cause to complain of their treatment when they arrived at Brest; for they were landed at once, and the captain and officers were liberated on parole. The French also treated them very well and invited the valorous George Walker to many a repast, where they laughed at the narrow shave that he had had from death,—for they had left the Fleuron none too soon.
On the day following the landing, Captain Walker was seated in the office of a counting-house, near the dock-end, and was writing a letter to the captain of the Fleuron, requesting him to send him his letter-of-credit, which was in a tin box in a cabin of the French man-of-war, when a terrible Boom! sounded upon his ears.
A sailor came running past the open window.
“The Fleuron has blown up!” he cried. “The Fleuron is a total loss!”
Captain Walker dashed into the street; to the end of the quay; and there a sad spectacle greeted his eager gaze. Strewn about upon the surface of the water were broken spars; pieces of sail; and the débris of a once gallant man-of-war. The remnants of the Fleuron were burning brightly.