“What do you think of them, Grampus?” said I, as I took the glass which I had just before handed to him.
“I don’t like their looks, sir,” he answered. “That headmost frigate is English—so I take it from the look of her hull and the cut of her canvas—but the others I can’t make out by no manner of means. I don’t think the ‘Bristol’ or the ‘Lowestoffe’ are among them.”
I had come to the same conclusion that Grampus had; but I wished to confirm my own opinion by his. We stood on for five minutes longer. My suspicions of the character of the strangers increased.
“We are running into the lion’s jaws, I suspect!” I exclaimed; whereat Grampus and Rockets opened their eyes to know what I meant. “Hoist our colours, and let us learn what they are without further delay.”
Scarcely had we run our ensign up to the peak than up went the French flag at that of the headmost frigate which at the same time fired a warning gun at us.
“Up with the helm! Ease off the main-sheets! Keep her away!” I exclaimed.
The orders were quickly obeyed, and away we flew with a strong breeze directly before the wind. I had two very good reasons for endeavouring to escape by keeping before the wind. In the first place, a fore-and-aft vessel has generally a great advantage over a square-rigged ship on that point of sailing, and I might otherwise have drawn the enemy’s squadron towards the station of the Aeolus. As she was so much inferior in strength to it, she would easily have fallen into their power, especially as, not being aware that war had broken out, she would have been taken by surprise.
As soon as I put up my helm and kept away, the headmost of the strangers crowded all sail in chase, making signals to the rest of the squadron to follow her—undoubtedly not to allow me any prospect of escaping. She fired two or three shot, but she was still too far-off to hit me. All the other vessels hoisted French colours, and any lingering hope I might have retained, that after all I might have been mistaken, and that the strangers were English, now vanished. Still my principle has always been never to give in while life remains, and so I resolved to hold on till I got completely under the enemy’s guns, and then, when I found that there was a strong probability of my being sunk, to haul down my colours, but not till then. I had heard of a small vessel escaping even from under the very guns of a big enemy, and I intended not to throw such a chance away. I called my crew aft.
“My men,” said I, “I won’t ask you to stick to me to the last, because I know you will. Those ships astern are enemies: we’ll do our best to escape from them, and if we are taken and the chance is given us, we’ll endeavour to heave our captors into the water, and to re-take the schooner, won’t we?”
“Yes, sir, that we will,” answered Grampus. “I speak for the rest, because I know their minds, and you are just the man to do the thing if it is to be done.”