“I would advise you to turn in, young gentlemen, as soon as you have had some food,” he said, as we were leaving.
He also ordered that our boat’s crew should be well looked after. The surgeon, who was summoned, went to attend to them, and to prevent them from being overfed, or overdosed with grog, which to a certainty they would otherwise have been by the seamen of the ship. As I was going down to the orlop deck, Larry came aft, supported by two men, with his fiddle-case under his arm.
“Och, Mr Terence,” he said, “I’m mighty glad to find ourselves safe aboard a big ship again, and to see you all right. It is more than I thought to do since our own went down with all her brave boys, barrin’ ourselves.”
The doctor, finding that we did not require much of his assistance, attended to Larry and the other men, who appeared far more knocked up than we were, and they were at once sent to their hammocks. We were ushered into the gun-room by the master’s mate, who accompanied us. Here we found a number of midshipmen seated at a table, employed in various ways. They greeted us warmly, and were all eager to know our adventures, which we told them while discussing the meal placed before us. Scarcely, however, had I finished eating, when my head dropped on the table, and there I should have sat, had not one of the assistant-surgeons aroused me and advised me to turn in. I slept on, as did Nettleship and Tom, till the hammocks were piped up next morning, and, if left alone, should not have awoke for hours afterwards.
We all three, though still weak, felt pretty well able to get about, and were in reality in a better state than many of the officers and men, who were suffering from the effect of the West Indian climate. I never saw so pale and haggard a crew. We were treated with the greatest kindness by our new messmates, and Nettleship was asked into the ward-room, to give a further account of what had happened to us. We had indeed ample reason to be thankful for our preservation, when so many on board our own and other ships had perished.
In a couple of days we were as well as ever, and, as many of the mates and midshipmen were too ill to do duty, we were directed to take their places. Larry, as usual, made himself at home with his fiddle, and soon set the seamen and French prisoners jigging away, as he had done on board other ships.
We were standing on with all the canvas the battered old Hector could carry, with the wind from the southward, when the look-out aloft announced two sail away to leeward. One of the lieutenants, with his telescope on his back, immediately went to the main-topmast cross-trees to have a look at them.
“As far as I can make out, they are two frigates, sir, coming up before the wind,” he said to the captain when he came down.
“Are they English or French?” asked the captain. “According to my judgment, sir, they are French,” was the answer.
The captain took a few turns on deck, and then again sent aloft. The lieutenant, on his return, pronounced his opinion more decidedly that they were French, and both large frigates. The captain on this ordered the drum to beat to quarters, and the usual preparations were made for battle. Evening was approaching, and it might be well on in the night before the enemy could be up to us.