“Could you take me ashore in your boat, so that I could have a good look at the fleet and harbor, and see the Englishman you spoke of, and bring me back after dark?”
“I can take you ashore well enough, but bringing you back is another matter; the English have boats rowing around the roadstead in the night; if they saw me going out after dark, they would suspect something, and stop me.”
“I would give a good deal to get inside the roadstead, and to see that deserter.”
“I’ll do all I can to help you. I’ll take you along shore to one of the creeks where there is no watch kept, and set you off from there.”
The Frenchman made Walter lie down in the bottom of the boat, covered him with sea-weed, and flung fish over him; he then put up his sail, and steered boldly into the roadstead. As he passed one of the English ships, he was hailed and asked for a mess of fish; he went alongside, and flung the fish on the grating of the side ladder, and receiving his money, kept on.
“If they had known who was under these fish,” said the fisherman to Walter, pulling the sea-weed off from him, as they came under the guns of the French castle, “it would have put an end to my fishing.”
He now conducted Walter to the observatory, situated on very high ground, in which was a powerful telescope, and from which he could track the frigate and sloop of war as they ran along the coast, and see perfectly the position of the ships in the roadstead. He found the flag-ship lay the farthest in, just out of range of the forts, and so moored as to completely command the channel. Having taken careful note of all these things, and made a rough draft on paper, he went to the fisherman’s house, where he found the English sailor, who informed him of many particulars that were important, and among other things, that a supply ship was daily expected on the coast and was eagerly looked for, as provisions were growing short in the fleet.
“What is her name?” asked Walter.
“The Severn.”