“Not if we continue to overhaul her as we are now doing,” answered Ben.
“Will she fight?” inquired Dick.
“Ay, and fight hard, too, just as a rat does when caught in a corner. It’s a way those Frenchmen have, though why she runs now is more than I can tell. Maybe some of us will be losing the number of our mess. I should not care if I was among them myself. It’s a dog’s life I lead on board here; but I am thinking of poor Susan. If I am hit, it will be hard lines with her; she and the young ones will have to bear up for the work’us, for there’s no one will care for the smuggler’s wife, as they call her.”
“But I hope you won’t be killed, Ben,” said Dick; “there’s no reason why you should be more than any one else.”
“Well, well, I’m not afraid,” answered Ben; “the enemy’s shot are in no ways particular, and I should not be so very sorry if one of them was to take off the head of that Lord Reginald or Toady Voules, as his messmates call him.”
“I could not bring myself to wish either one of them such a fate as that,” observed Dick, who had not altogether forgotten his mother’s instructions and Christian principles.
“I have no reason to love either the young lord or his toady, and I should not weep my eyes out if they were to be killed—they’d only get their deserts; and for my own part, I would like to see them both knocked over by the same round shot,” growled Ben, between his teeth.
The frigate was now approaching the chase. The drum beat to quarters, and the crew hurried up from below, most of them stripped to the waist with handkerchiefs round their heads and loins. The glare of the fighting lanterns, hung up on the beams along the deck, cast a glow on their muscular figures, the breaches of the guns and other salient points, while all the rest were cast in the deepest gloom.
Ben went to his gun, and Dick was ordered below to the magazine to bring up ammunition. Though much bigger than any of the other lads so employed, as he had been only a short time at sea, he had to perform the humble duty of a powder monkey. He would far rather have been engaged in working one of the guns.
The Wolf was carrying all the canvas which could be packed on her, studding-sails on either side and royals aloft. The chase also, under all sail, was still doing her utmost to keep ahead, but the Wolf, being the fastest ship of the two, gained rapidly on her. The men stood at their guns, waiting eagerly for the moment that the order to fire should be given, laughing, however, and cracking their usual jokes. The officers went their rounds, to see that all necessary preparations had been made.