“No; to my mind it is only a mounseer midshipmite,” observed Reuben Cole, looking down from his work into the boat.
“They’ve picked up a few other things, though, but it’s a poor haul, I fear.”
When the boat came alongside, a fine young boy in a French uniform was handed up and placed on the deck. He looked around with a bewildered air, as if not knowing where he was. Captain Walford then took him kindly by the hand, and told him that he should be well cared for, and that he would find friends instead of those he had lost. The boy sighed.
“What! are all, all gone?” he asked in French.
“I fear so,” answered the captain. “But you are cold and wet, and you must go below to the surgeon, who will attend to you.”
The poor young stranger was, however, very unwilling to leave the deck, and kept looking up into the countenances of the bystanders as if in search of some of his missing friends. Paul watched him with interest.
“Poor boy!” he said to himself; “I thought that I was very forlorn and miserable; but I have Reuben Cole and others who are kind to me, and he has no one here who can care for him. How fortunate that I learned French, because now I can talk to him and be useful to him.”
When the humane Captain Walford found that all the rest of the hapless crew of his late antagonist were lost, he ordered all the sail to be made which the frigate in her present crippled state could carry, in chase of his other opponent, having noted carefully the direction in which she was steering when last seen.
“I thought that we had done with fighting for the present,” said Paul to Reuben Cole, who told him that they were looking out for the other frigate.
“No, boy, that we haven’t, and what’s more, I expect we shan’t, as long as the flag of an enemy of old England flies over the salt sea. You’ll live, I hope, Paul, to help thrash many of them. I liked the way in which you behaved in the action just now. You was cool and active, which is just what you should be. It won’t be my fault if you don’t make a first-rate seaman some day.”