The men grinned, turned their quids, hitched up the waistbands of their breeches; squinted along the sights of their guns; looked at the frigate, as though measuring her distance, and then adjusted the elevation of their pieces with evidently the nicest judgment and the very best of intentions.
Watching the frigate carefully, the helm was put down at just the right moment; and as our topsail swept round and was braced up—bang!—bang!—bang!—bang! roared our eighteens, away skipped the shot, and crash went all four of them slap into the stern of the disabled Frenchman, playing the very mischief with the gilt-ginger-bread work with which that part of the ship was profusely decorated. A rattling broadside from the brig now drew our attention to her, and we saw that she was standing toward us, close-hauled on the larboard tack, under topsails and topgallant-sails; and that she also had taken advantage of the frigate’s helpless situation to rake her most handsomely.
The Frenchman, meanwhile, having got himself into what Courtenay would have termed “the centre of a hobble,” was very busily doing his best to get out of it again—and in a very seamanlike way, too, notwithstanding his former mistake—by clewing up and furling everything abaft his mainmast and so trimming his yards as to cause the frigate to gather stern-way and gradually pay off again. This, however, was a work of some little time, hampered as the ship was with wreck forward; and before it was done we had passed to windward of her, receiving in so doing the fire of but seven of her sixteen larboard broadside guns, to which we replied effectively with our starboard battery. Having reached far enough to weather her on our next tack we went about, and, crossing her bows, fired our larboard battery and our thirty-two pounder into her again, raking her severely and, best of all, bringing her fore-topmast down by the run. She had by this time paid off sufficiently to have gathered head-way, and her crew actually managed to get her before the wind; but it was only for a few minutes, she soon broached to again; and being by this time almost entirely bereft of head sail—her foresail alone remaining—there she hung, in the wind’s eye, helpless, and practically at our mercy. The Dolphin was at once placed in an advantageous position on the frigate’s starboard bow, and kept there by her topsail being laid aback, whilst the brig took up a corresponding position on the enemy’s starboard quarter; and we then both opened a raking fire upon her so effectually that ten minutes later she hauled down her colours and surrendered.
Chapter Twenty.
The Privateer and the Indiaman.
Having satisfied ourselves that the French frigate had actually struck, we filled on the schooner and ran down under the lee of the brig, where we once more hove to; our gig was lowered and manned, and I proceeded on board to see if my services were further required.
On reaching the deck I was met by a man of some five-and-thirty years of age, evidently the skipper of the craft, who held out his hand to me most cordially, and exclaimed:
“Welcome, young gentleman, on board his Britannic majesty’s brig Dido. You hove in sight just in the nick of time this morning, for, but for your very effective help, we should have been the captured instead of the captors by this time. What is the name of your schooner?”