"Is he a fisherman? What is he like?"
"I have never seen him, Monsieur. For myself, I have never put foot to land in England. But the captain knows him; ah, yes! the captain knows Goujon."
And Jack at last went to sleep, wondering who Goujon could be.
CHAPTER X
A PRISONER OF FRANCE
Next morning Jack was awakened early and told that he must march.
"Very happy," he said, "but where to?"
He had recovered his spirits. No misfortunes, no bufferings, can long depress a healthy boy of sixteen. Consequently when he learned that he was to tramp to Boulogne, more than fifty miles away, he received the information with a smile. His chief thought was: "Perhaps I shall see that Monstair, Boney himself!" The prospect of a fifty-mile walk in keen, bright weather did not daunt him.
He was accompanied by the skipper of the lugger and several of the men. Now that they were on French soil they had lost their reluctance to talk, and before many miles had been covered Jack was chatting as freely as his command of the language permitted, and laughing at the misunderstandings that occurred on both sides. He learned one fact that made him feel sorry. A few days before, Admiral Keith had exploded some vessels among a hundred and fifty of the French praams at their anchorage outside the pier at Boulogne. But this attempt to destroy the flotilla had not succeeded, the vessels having been separated by distances too wide for the explosion to have the destructive effect intended. The French smugglers were much elated at Admiral Keith's failure, and amused Jack by their confident assertion that before long Bonaparte, or the Emperor Napoleon, as he was beginning to be called, would make himself King of England.
Boulogne was reached at the end of the second day's march. Jack was taken to a commissary of the forces. He did not learn till some time afterward what story the skipper told. It was to the effect that his lugger, while making for Boulogne from St. Malo, had been becalmed off Barfleur, within sight of an English frigate which lay about two miles astern. A boat had been sent from the frigate to capture the lugger. Attempting to board, the English crew had been driven back with severe loss, and this young officer, who had been foremost of the boarding party, had been left in the Frenchmen's hands.