Within a very few days after this Captain Porter learned that other English frigates were working their way up to Valparaiso; and when the blockade should be stronger, it was almost positive both our ships would fall prizes to the enemy.
All this we heard from the marines, as a matter of course, and finally they brought that information which aroused us to the highest pitch once more.
It was said by these eavesdroppers that there had been a consultation of officers in Captain Porter's cabin, and it had been decided that we bend all our energies to giving the Essex Junior an opportunity of escape, while we would remain and take the brunt of the fight.
On some day in the near future, when the wind should be strong and favorable, we were to put out as if willing to meet both the Britishers. The Essex could outsail them, as had been proven several times already, and she was to run two or three leagues off the coast, knowing full well that the enemy would follow.
When we were hull down in the distance, the Essex Junior would get under way, and do her prettiest at doubling the Horn without running afoul of a British frigate.
Surely, it seemed as if that plan would work without a hitch, so our old sea-dogs argued, for the Phœbe and Cherub must follow us, since neither of them was willing to meet us singly, and they could not run the chance of waiting for the Junior, because we might be trying to save our own skins, which would not seem improbable in view of the fact that the frigate was the more valuable ship of the two.
By such a course we would not be bringing the matter to an issue as far as the Essex was concerned; but it would open the way for the Junior to make a home port and give tidings of us who were ready to venture all rather than have it believed we dared not stand up to a ship of our size, or even two of them.
Now we thought and talked of nothing save the scheme to outwit the Britisher, and it is safe to say that never a crew watched the sky more intently than did we, for a strong, favoring wind was to be the signal for getting under way, as we knew by this time from the officers as well as the marines.
We were to make a venture which might bring us to grief; but we believed firmly that the Junior would get safely out of the scrape.