"You are hurt?" he asked. "You have fought your ship gallantly, but fortune was against you. Go to your quarters, please. I will take no sword from an officer of such courage."
He put aside the sword that was offered him so feebly, and signed to men of his crew to lift the injured officer. Then he shook hands with the other Frenchmen present, many of whom shed tears as they replaced their swords in their scabbards.
"Ah, monsieur," said one, who seemed to be the second in command, "it was the fortune of war, but bad fortune for us. With that mast shot away we were helpless, and then your broadsides poured into our stern tore the lengths of the decks, and did terrible damage. Our poor fellows were shot down in heaps. War, monsieur, is a terror."
None could fail to admit that who visited the French ship, for what had been a well-found, trim vessel was now a shambles. It turned Tom sick and faint when he looked about him, so that he was forced to cling to the rail. But a moment later, when Mr. Riley called him, he was able to pull himself together.
"We're to go aboard the sloop and see what she is," he called. "Help to lower me into the cutter."
Half an hour later Tom clambered up the side of the smaller vessel, and hauled his officer up after him. They found a French midshipman in command of a crew of five, while beneath the hatches there were three prisoners.
"Release them," Mr. Riley ordered; and, taking a couple of the French crew with him, Tom saw the hatch lifted, and called to the men below to come up. The smart uniform of an officer showed through the square hatch at once, and in a moment or two a youth stood on the deck before him, whom one would have said was British to the backbone.
"Ensign Jack Barwood, 60th Rifles, sir," he reported, drawing himself up in front of Mr. Riley and saluting. "Going out to join my regiment, this little sloop in which I had taken passage was held up by a French man-of-war. Our men were taken off, that is, the crew. I and two of my own men were left here as prisoners. We heard heavy firing, and guessed there was an action. What has happened?"
Mr. Riley turned and pointed at the French prize won by the frigate. "We beat her," he said, with pride in his tones. "You've had luck to escape so early from a French prison. Where were you bound for?"
"In the first place, Oporto," came the answer. "Later, as a prisoner, for Bayonne. Now, I suppose, we shall have to return to England?"