The officers went down and reported it to the captain: the glasses were fixed upon her, and there was little doubt as to what she was.
“Lucky you discovered her, boy, for we might have been surprised, that’s a fact,” said the captain; “however, now she shall catch a Tartar.”
“She’s waiting for the fog, captain,” said Bramble, “which will come rolling down with the shift of wind in about an hour or two, I expect; and then we must allow her another hour to get alongside of us. Depend upon it she has plenty of men, and intends to try to board us in the fog.”
Everybody was now on the qui vive; the women were, as usual, frightened; the men passengers looked grave, the Lascars rather unsteady; but we had forty English seamen and a hundred invalid soldiers on board, who could all be depended upon. The guns were loaded and shotted, and the invalid soldiers were mustered; muskets and ammunition handed up; the bayonets fixed, unfixed again; and then they were ordered to remain on the booms with their accoutrements on and their muskets by their sides. The officers still kept their glasses on the lugger, until at last the fog came down and we could see her no more.
The officers who commanded the invalids, after a consultation with the captain, at which Bramble assisted, told off their men into two parties, one of them being appointed to assist the seamen with their bayonets in repelling the boarders (should the attempt be made), and the other to fire upon them and into the deck of the vessel when she came alongside. The Lascars were stationed at the guns, in case they might be required; but no great dependence was placed upon their services.
By the time that these arrangements had been made, the fog had reached the Indiaman, and we were at the same time taken aback with the easterly breeze which brought it down to us: being near to the land, we put the ship’s head off shore. The wind continued light and the water smooth, but the fog thickened every minute: at last we could hardly see as far as the foremast of the vessel.
“He’ll be puzzled to find us, I think,” said the captain.
“He’ll find us, never fear,” replied Bramble. “He has calculated the time of the fog reaching us, and he knows that we must lay our head off-shore—to be sure, we might give him the go-by if we bore up and ran back again to the Downs.”
“I think I see myself bearing up and running away from a rascally French privateer,” said the captain. “Keep a sharp look-out there forward.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” replied the chief officer.