“I wonder you didn’t do that before you ran away from home,” said Jack. “They’ll have forgotten all about you by this time, and maybe, if you do manage to write a letter, your father won’t believe that it comes from you.”
“Let him alone, Jack,” said Bill; “I don’t mind what he says about me. If his father gets him made a midshipman, I shall be as glad as any one.”
“Thank you,” said Tom; “I flatter myself I shall know how to strut about the quarter-deck and order the men here and there as well as the rest of them.”
Just then a voice was heard shouting, “Tom Fletcher, the cook wants you in the galley. Be smart, now, you’ve been long enough at breakfast.”
Tom, bolting his last piece of biscuit, hurried away, as he had no fancy for the rope’s-ending which would have been bestowed upon him had he delayed obeying the summons.
The mess-tins were stowed away, and the watch hastened on deck. The wind by this time had somewhat freshened, and the frigate and her prize were making better progress than before. The strangers, however, which had appeared in sight in the morning were considerably nearer. A fourth was now seen beyond the three which had been made out to the eastward. The ship to the westward which was considerably farther off than the others, was evidently a large vessel, and the captain declared his belief that she was a line-of-battle ship, but whether English or French, it was impossible to decide. He hoped, as did everybody on board, that she was English, for should she prove to be French, as undoubtedly were the vessels to the eastward, the Thisbe would lose her hard-won prize, even though she might manage to escape herself. Still, Captain Martin was not a man to give up hope while there was a chance of escape.
The Thisbe, followed by her prize, kept on her course with every stitch of canvas she could carry set.
“I’m afraid if we don’t outrun those fellows there, we shall get boxed up again by the Frenchmen,” observed Jack, pointing to the approaching ships.
“If we do we must manage to get out somehow or other, as we did before,” answered Bill; “but even if they do come up with us, that’s no reason why we should be taken. We must try and beat them off, and the captain and Mr Saltwell are the men to do it. They are only four to our two ships, for the lieutenant in charge of the prize will fight his guns as well as we do ours.”
“But what do you say to that big ship coming up Channel out there?” asked Tom. “We shall be made mincemeat of if she gets up to us, for I heard the boatswain’s mate say that she’s a seventy-four at least, and may be an eighty-gun ship, or still larger.”