South of the Bay of Bengal, a cyclone struck the Emilie and she was steered for Rangoon, where—
“The flying fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder,
Outer China across the Bay.”
And here a British vessel steered for her: white-winged, saucy, vindictive-looking.
She came on valiantly, and, when within a hundred yards, pumped a shot across the bow of the drowsing Emilie. It meant “Show your colors.”
Hoisting the red, white and blue of France, Surcouf replied with three scorching shots. One struck the Britisher amid-ships, and pumped a hole in her black boarding.
Like a timid girl, the Englishman veered off, hoisted her topsail, and tried to get away. She saw that she had caught a tartar.
The blood was up of the “Man from St. Malo.” “I consider the shot across my bows as an attack,” said he, and he slapped on every stitch of canvas, so that the Emilie was soon abreast of the Britisher. Boom! A broadside roared into her and she struck her colors. Bold Robert Surcouf had passed the Rubicon,—he had seen the English flag lowered to him, for the first time; and his heart swelled with patriotic pride, in spite of the fact that this was an act of piracy, for which he could be hanged to the yard-arm.
“On! On!” cried Surcouf. “More captures! More prizes!”
Three days later three vessels carrying rice fell into his hands,—one of which,—a pilot-brig—was appropriated in place of the Emilie, which had a foul, barnacled bottom and had lost her speed. The Diana, another rice-carrier—was also captured—and Robert Surcouf headed for the Mauritius: pleased and happy.
A few days later, as the vessels pottered along off the river Hooghly, the cry came: