He had heard the order to hoist the ensign, and some time afterwards a voice called out, “That’s a French craft, I’ll take my davy, though we can’t see her colours.”
Again some time elapsed, when a gun was heard, but the sound was so faint that Dick thought the vessel which fired it must be at a great distance. Presently Mr Mason came down into the hold.
“Lads,” he said, looking round, “you are all Englishmen, though you are pressed against your will to serve his Majesty. I put it to you, whether—as I think it likely we are somewhat over-matched—you’ll fight to preserve this vessel and to save yourself being carried to a French prison. I have come down to give you your liberty, as I am sure that you will all make the same answer, and if cutlasses are put into your hands, that you’ll fight as bravely as any men on board. We shall then, I have no fear, lick the lugger, and carry her as a prize into Plymouth harbour.”
A hearty cheer was given. “We’ll thrash the mounseers; no fear about that,” answered the men; Dick joining as warmly as any one.
The men’s handcuffs were soon taken off. Dick, on finding himself free, sprang to his feet and grasped the cutlass which was put into his hands. On reaching the deck he found the cutter was prepared for action. Two of the guns were trained aft, boarding-pikes were placed along the bulwarks. An arm-chest stood open, containing pistols, hand-grenades, swords, and cutlasses, while a number of muskets lay on the companion hatch.
The two midshipmen, with pistols in their belts and cutlasses at their sides, stood watching the lugger, which under press of sail was coming up astern. She was evidently a much faster craft than the cutter, though the latter was a stout vessel of her class. The lugger now began to fire her long gun; the shot, though failing to strike, pitched sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other side of the cutter.
“Why don’t we try and knock away some of her spars?” observed Lord Reginald.
“Little use firing our pop-guns,” answered the commander; “our shot won’t reach her as yet.”
Presently the long gun sent its missile through the cutter’s squaresail. Another shortly afterwards made a second hole, but did no other damage.
“Those fellows know how to handle their gun. We shall see how they behave when we get them within range of ours. Stand by, Beal, to give it them,” he said to the gunner, who had brought a match from the galley fire.