"So your brig only arrived here four days ago? I was puzzled in the morning when I saw there were two brigs and a schooner when we had only expected one brig. Of course your arrival accounts for that. What was her name, and how many guns and men did she carry?"
"She was La Belle Marie of Dunkirk," Ralph replied. "She carried fourteen guns, mostly eighteen-pounders, and a thirty-two-pounder on a pivot. She had eighty hands at first, but eight of them went away in the prize."
"Do you know whether she has gone off straight for France or whether she is going to remain here?"
"From what I gathered from the men, sir, I believe the other two privateers are going straight home. They loaded up from the storehouses, taking, of course, the most valuable stuff. There was a great deal of copper, but what the rest was I do not know. Our brig was loaded up too, but I believe her intention was to transfer her cargo into the first prize she took and send it to France. I do not know whether she was going to cruise about here for a time, but I should rather think that now that her consorts have gone and this place been discovered she will not stay here, for she never intended to cruise in these waters long. I know that her destination was the Indian Ocean, and she intended to capture Indiamen on their way out or home."
"In that case our expedition has been more satisfactory than I expected," the captain said. "We shall have discovered and destroyed their depot here, captured anyhow some valuable stuff, and caused the two privateers that we have been hunting for so long to leave the islands, to say nothing of this brig of yours, of which we had not heard. Well, Mr. Wylde, what is your report?"
"It will take a long time to go through the whole sir, but I should say that we have taken a most valuable prize. Part of the goods consist of produce of these parts—puncheons of rum and hogsheads of sugar in any number. Then I see they have left a good many tons of copper behind them; overlooked them, I suppose, in the hurry of loading. A considerable portion of the stores consist of home produce—cottons, cloths, silks, furniture, musical instruments, mirrors, and, in fact, goods of all kinds."
"That is most satisfactory, Mr. Wylde, and we sha'n't have had our trouble for nothing. Ah! here come the other boats."
As he spoke the pinnaces, long-boats, and cutters of the two ships of war dashed into the harbor, and in a minute or two reached the landing-place.
"So they gave you the slip as well as me, Chambers?" Captain Wilson said.
"Confound them, yes. I was within about four miles of them at sunset, but they both gave me the slip in the dark."