“What will you do, then?”
“Not hang him, certainly; and yet I should like to punish her.”
“She deserves it,” replied Captain Levee. “Now, Elrington, will you approve of my suggestion?”
“Let me hear it.”
“It is this: they do not know that I have assisted in taking the privateer, as they have no idea that I am here. As soon as we have refitted her and your vessel, I will remain where I am. You shall run into the mouth of the Garonne, with your colours flying, and the English Jack over the French flag on board of the prize. This will lead them to suppose that you have taken the vessel without assistance. When just out of gun-shot, heave-to, fire a gun, and then swing an effigy to the yard-arm, and remain there, to make them suppose that you have hung the French captain. At nightfall you can make sail and rejoin me. That will punish her, and annoy them generally.”
“I will do so; it is an excellent device, and she will never know the truth for a long time to come.”
We remained all that day refitting; in the evening I made sail, in company with the French schooner, which was manned by Captain Levee, and stood in shore. At break of the following day I ran in, standing for the harbour, without my colours being hoisted, and then it occurred to me that I would make their disappointment greater, by allowing them first to imagine that the victory was theirs; so, when about six miles off, I hoisted French colours on the French schooner, and French colours over English on board of my own.
I continued to stand on till within two miles and a half of the batteries, and could see crowds flocking down to witness the supposed triumphant arrival of their privateer into port; when of a sudden I hauled my wind, hove-to, brailed up my sails, and changed the colours, firing a gun in bravado. Allowing them half an hour to comment upon this disappointment, I then fired another gun, and hoisted up to the yard-arm the figure of a man, composed of clothes stuffed with hay, made to represent the French captain; and having so done, I remained during the whole forenoon, with my sails brailed up, that they might have a clear view of the hanging figure. At last we perceived a large boat, with a flag of truce, coming out of the river. I remained where I was, and, allowing it to come alongside, I perceived in it the French officer who had pledged himself to give the conditions of the combat to the lady; and seated by him was the French captain’s wife, with her head sunk down on her knees, and her face buried in her handkerchief.
I saluted the officer as he came on deck. He returned my bow, and then said, “Sir, the fortune of war has proved in your favour, and I perceive that the conditions of the issue of the combat have been adhered to on your side. Against that I have not a word to say, as my friend would have as rigidly adhered to them. But, Sir, we war not with the dead, and I have come off at the request of his miserable wife, to beg that you will, now that your revenge is satisfied, deliver up to her her husband’s body, that it may receive the rites of the Church, and Christian burial. You surely, as a brave man, will not deny this small favour to a woman whom you have twice deprived of her husband?”
“Sir,” I replied, “on condition that his lady will step on board and make the request herself, I will comply with it, but on no other terms.”