“Let me take another look, sir.”
I handed over the glass, and he took another long look at her.
“Fire away with your lanterns, sir, as soon as you like,” said he. “I’ll stake my liberty that yon craft is none other than the ‘Amethyst.’ She’s a twenty-eight; but her skipper is man enough to give a good account of Johnny, I’ll be bound.”
“Then rouse out the lanterns, and let’s make the private signal,” said I. “But instead of hoisting them at our peak, where the Frenchman will see them and perhaps suspect something, haul the staysail down, get a block well up on the fore-stay, and we will run them up there; our sails will then hide them from the craft astern.”
So said, so done; we showed the private signal, and in less than a minute it was properly answered, upon which we telegraphed the news that a French frigate was about ten miles astern in chase of us.
Our signal was duly acknowledged; and immediately afterwards the “Amethyst”—for she it was—bore up.
I now looked for the French frigate, to see if I could observe anything to show that they had seen the English frigate’s signal lanterns; but she was still carrying on upon the same tack, and, as I judged that she and the “Amethyst” were about seventeen miles apart, I hoped that the lights had escaped her notice.
In about twenty minutes the “Amethyst” passed us, a mile to windward, and apparently steering a course which would run her slap on board the Frenchman in another half-hour. There was not a light to be seen anywhere about her; but for all that I knew that her crew were wide awake and busy. She was running down under courses, topsails, spanker, and jib, her topgallant-yards down upon the caps, with the sails clewed up, but not furled; royals stowed.
“Now we shall see some fun shortly,” exclaimed Smellie, in high glee—he having got an inkling that something out of the common was toward, in that mysterious way in which people do learn such things on board a small ship, and had accordingly come on deck. But he was mistaken for once, if by the term fun he meant a frigate action; for old Clewline, the skipper of the “Amethyst,” was too seasoned a hand to do anything rashly. He ran down, his ship as dark as the grave, until he had attained a position about two miles dead to windward of our pursuer, when he hauled up and showed the private signal at his gaff-end. The French frigate immediately edged away about four points and showed some lanterns, but they were not a reply to the “Amethyst’s” signal; so Clewline tried another—to make quite sure of avoiding any mistake. This was not answered at all; on the contrary, the Frenchman hauled down his lanterns and wore short round, crowding sail at the same moment; whereupon the “Amethyst” also bore up again and—Clewline must have had his men aloft all the time, ready for the emergency—as she squared away in chase, we saw her stunsails fluttering out to their boom-ends on both sides. We then tacked and resumed our original course once more, heartily thankful for our escape, and chuckling mightily at the thought of the trap Johnny Crapaud had run his nose into. In less than half an hour afterwards we lost sight of both ships.
We reached Gibraltar without further incident, and failing there to obtain any intelligence as to Lord Hood’s whereabouts, we filled up our water and sailed again for Malta the same evening. We had a splendid but perfectly uneventful run from the Rock, a westerly wind and fine weather prevailing during the whole trip.