"Why, it's Repton!" the captain exclaimed, in surprise. "Why, where do you spring from, and what craft are these?"
"I am in command, at present, sir, of the polacre; which, with the barque, is a prize of the brig the Antelope, privateer."
"But what are you doing on board, Repton? And how is it that you are in command?"
"Well, sir, I was out on a cruise in the Antelope. The second mate was sent, with a prize crew, back to Gibraltar, in a craft we picked up off Malaga. We cut out the other two prizes from under the guns of Cartagena. The first mate was in command of the party that captured the barque and, as there was no one else to send, the captain put me in command of the party that captured the polacre."
"But how on earth did you manage it?" the captain asked. "I see the brig has been cut up a good deal, about the sails and rigging. You don't mean to say that she sailed right into Cartagena? Why, they would have blown her out of the water!"
"We didn't go in, sir. We anchored outside the port. We were not suspected, because one of His Majesty's frigates fired at us, as we were going in; and the consequence was the Dons never suspected that we were anything but a Spanish trader."
"Why, you don't mean to say," the captain exclaimed, "that this was the brig, flying Spanish colours, which we chased in under the guns of Cartagena, yesterday?"
"It is, sir," Bob said, smiling. "You did us a very good turn, although your intentions were not friendly. We were under Spanish colours, when you made us out; and it struck us that running the gauntlet of your fire, for a little while, would be an excellent introduction for us to the Spaniards.
"So it proved. We brought up close to those other two vessels, and I had a talk with the captain of one of them. The two captains both went ashore, after dark; so we put twenty men into a boat, and rowed in to the mouth of the port; waited there for a bit, and then rowed straight out to the ships. They thought, of course, it was their own officers returning; so we took them by surprise, and captured them pretty easily.
"Unfortunately there was some noise made, and they took the alarm on shore. However, we were under way before the batteries opened. It was rather unpleasant, for a bit, but we got safely out. Two gunboats came out after us; but the brig beat them off, and we helped as well as we could. The brig had five men killed, we had one, and there are several wounded."