How it came about that Captain Gorham knew the French cockswain was simple. Although the Captain was an American born and raised, only a few years previous to the outbreak of the war he had done a little smuggling on his own account between Dunquerque and the coast of England. So what appeared at first to be most mysterious is really simple when we come to look at it.
But now to tell of what we did. It had been Captain Gorham's intention, I take it, to run into Dunquerque Harbor, but owing to the representations of Pierre Burron, who stated that he might never leave it if we did so, this idea was given up; and keeping the lead going, we took the wind on our quarter, and made off to the southward, the Captain promising to put the little Frenchman on board the first vessel hound for his country, and pay him well for his services.
While we had been coming about, I, to show my willingness, had hauled lustily on the mainsheet and pitched in with the crew, and as soon as everything was going well, Plummer and I sat down against the bowsprit and began to spin our respective yarns. Of course there was much to tell. Mine is known already, and Plummer's was but the recounting of the most unusual good luck that had ever attended the career of a cruiser in any service, I suppose.
It seems that finding the Young Eagle had sailed before he expected she would be ready, Plummer had delayed a long time before he had found a berth to suit his fancy, and then he had shipped in the Yankee from New Bedford. From the day of their sailing they had had fair winds and good fortune, capturing two English vessels off the American coast, laden with supplies for the English army in Canada, two more on the high seas, and three, of all places in the world but almost under the nose of the British Admiralty, at the entrance to their own private Channel. In all these encounters they had lost but two men killed and three slightly wounded.
The manning of so many prizes had reduced the crew of one hundred and twenty men to twenty-six all told. Being a fore-and-aft vessel, this was more than sufficient to run her properly, and, although it was considered foolhardiness in the forecastle, old Smiley, or Smiler, as they called Gorham, had determined to make one more attempt before he started for the States. Besides, the necessity of speaking some vessel and securing a compass had now become imperative.
"Tell me something of your skipper, Plummer," I asked. "He is of a certainty the strangest-looking man I ever met."
"Well, if you want to know the truth," Plummer answered, in a whisper, "he's as mad as the King of Bedlam—that is, to my thinking. In fact, on shore they say he is in league with the devil. But whether it is the devil or the powers above, he certainly carries a fair pinch of good luck 'twixt his thumb and his forefinger. You haven't heard him sing yet. Wait till you hear him at that. It will make the flesh crawl on your back, my lad. But, mark ye, he's a good seaman, for all of his vagaries. And he can man-handle any two of us."
The only other officer capable of navigation left on board the schooner was the third Lieutenant, Mr. Carter, who had been one of the slightly wounded, and who yet carried his right arm in a sling. As Plummer and I were talking, the Lieutenant came on deck, and ordered us to shake out the reef in the mainsail that we had taken in some time back, and set the topsail and flying jib.
The weather was clearing up and the wind going down at the same time. The sun now broke through the clouds, and by noon it was fine, clear weather. To the eastward we could see the low-lying shores of France, while to the westward the white cliffs of England shone plain to sight. A number of sail could be seen skirting the English coast, but nothing in the way of shipping could we make out on the other hand. But after we had altered our course slightly to the eastward, at three o'clock in the afternoon we made out a brown sail hugging the east shore, and evidently endeavoring to make the entrance to a small port not far from the mouth of a little bay. We could see the houses and steeples plainly.
It was evidently our intention to head off this little brown sail, and soon we saw that in this we should be successful, as the latter turned about, and started to run for it; but a point of land made her take quite an offing, and in two hours we were almost within hailing distance.