One of the commands given had related to a search for powder and shot, and the entire supply of the brig was now coming up, to be transferred to the schooner. It was a timely winning, for her stock had begun to run low.
"It's a good thing for us," said her captain and crew, as they secured it.
Anything and everything in the nature of arms and ammunition, furniture, cutlery, table goods, bales of woollens, and packages of silks taken from the French smuggler, more than a little tanned leather, lots of miscellaneous stuff not yet precisely known as to its character, made up the unexpectedly valuable plunder of the smuggler-capturing brig.
There was no time to transfer her cannon, and these were left behind, spiked. Her spare sails went, however, with a good yawl-boat and some extra light spars. Then the Noank cast off, and her crew gave their crestfallen British acquaintances three rounds of hearty cheers.
"Captain Avery," shouted Tracy, "you're a good fellow, but Fletcher and I hope we may meet you again, some day, with better luck to our guns."
"All right!" responded the captain. "May you command a forty-four and I another. Then the United States'll own one more prime ship that used to be the king's. Hurrah!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
DOWN THE BRITISH CHANNEL.
With the exception, it may be, of the Mediterranean Sea, there is no other water whereupon so much history has been manufactured as on the British Channel.