Just then a puff of smoke was seen to proceed from one of the retreating frigate’s after-ports, and the next instant poor Gipples was spinning along the deck, shrieking out with terror and pain. Out of all the crew, in spite of the heavy fire to which the corvette had been exposed, he and another poor fellow were the only men hit. This shot seemed a parting one of revenge. As Captain Brine watched the receding frigate, he could scarcely persuade himself that she would not again bear down upon him. On she stood—farther and farther off she got, till her hull sank beneath the horizon, and her courses, and then her topsails, and finally her topgallant-sails and royals, were hid from sight.
Fid, Hartland, and others carried poor Gipples below. Wonderful to relate, when the surgeon came to examine him, he pronounced his wound, though bad, not of necessity mortal, and thought that under favourable circumstances he might possibly do well. No one could have tended him more carefully and kindly than True Blue and his other old messmates; and he showed more gratitude for their attention than might have been expected.
Scarcely had the enemy disappeared, when the lookout at the masthead reported a large ship on the lee beam. Every exertion that could be made was applied to get the Gannet into a condition to chase, and in an hour’s time, under a wide spread of canvas she was standing after the stranger.
The latter appeared not to be a man-of-war, as she made off towards the Island of Guadaloupe, then dead to leeward. As she had so far the start, it became a question whether she could be brought to before she ran herself on shore. Still the Gannet, it was soon seen, sailed faster than she did, and Guadaloupe was scarcely visible on the horizon.
The breeze freshened, the corvette tore with foam-covered bows through the blue glittering ocean. At 11 a.m. she had made sail. By 3 p.m. she had got the stranger within range of her long guns.
“She is remarkably like an English ship, and from the way she is handled, I think she must be a prize, with a small crew on board,” observed the first to the second lieutenant.
After a few shots, the stranger’s main-topsail-yard was shot away, when she brought to, and proved to be the Swift, a British merchant ship, bound to Barbadoes, a prize to the frigate the Gannet had just beaten off. Mr Nott, with ten men, including True Blue and Tim Fid, were sent on board to work her; and as, instead of deserving the name of the Swift, she was more worthy of that of the Tub, the Gannet took her in tow, hoping to carry her to Barbadoes. All night long she towed her.
At daybreak next day, Captain Brine found that the misnamed Swift had drifted close in towards the land, while within her lay a frigate, and to all appearance the very frigate he had beaten off the day before.
Not a breath of wind ruffled the calm surface of that tropical sea. It was evident that the Gannet herself could do nothing to assist her prize. The Captain therefore called his officers round him, and asked their opinion as to the possibility of successfully defending her with the boats. They were against the advisability of making such an attempt.
As the daylight increased, the French frigate discovered the character of the two ships outside her.