“Ship ahoy! What ship is it?”
“His Britannic Majesty’s ship Hector. What boat is that?” came over the water.
Nettleship replied.
Presently the order sounded out from aboard the ship—
“Raise tacks and sheets! clew up mainsail and foresail! Let fly topgallant-sheets!”
The wind having fallen, the ship soon lost her way, and we pulled up alongside. A light gleamed through the entrance port, and ready hands, coming down, quickly assisted us up on deck, while the boat was secured, for none of us had much strength left to help ourselves.
Nettleship, Tom, and I were at once conducted to the upper deck, where we found the gallant commander of the Hector, Captain Bouchier, to whom Nettleship at once gave a brief account of what had happened.
“We have reason to be thankful that we escaped the gale, Drury,” said the captain, turning to an officer in a captain’s uniform standing near him. “We should to a certainty have shared the fate of many others.”
Captain Bouchier made this remark, I found, in consequence of the unseaworthy condition of his ship. To enable her to perform the voyage, before she sailed from Jamaica she had had twenty-two of her guns taken out of her, and her masts replaced by others of smaller dimensions. Her crew amounted in all to scarcely three hundred men, many of whom were invalids, and others French and American prisoners, who had volunteered to assist in working the ship.
As soon as Nettleship had finished his account, the captain directed that we should be taken below, and hammocks slung for us.