water like a swallow;
but she was making, to all appearance, so little headway, that the
unlucky Frenchmen began to entertain sweet delusive hopes. At last,
after unheard-of efforts, the _Saint-Ferdinand_ sprang forward, Gomez
himself directing the shifting of the sheets with voice and gesture,
when all at once the man at the tiller, steering at random (purposely,
no doubt), swung the vessel round. The wind striking athwart the beam,
the sails shivered so unexpectedly that the brig heeled to one side, the
booms were carried away, and the vessel was completely out of hand.
The captain's face grew whiter than his sails with unutterable rage. He
sprang upon the man at the tiller, drove his dagger at him in such blind
fury, that he missed him, and hurled the weapon overboard. Gomez took
the helm himself, and strove to right the gallant vessel. Tears of
despair rose to his eyes, for it is harder to lose the result of our
carefully-laid plans through treachery than to face imminent death.
But the more the captain swore, the less the men worked, and it was
he himself who fired the alarm-gun, hoping to be heard on shore. The
privateer, now gaining hopelessly upon them, replied with a cannon-shot,
which struck the water ten fathoms away from the _Saint-Ferdinand_.

"Thunder of heaven!" cried the General, "that was a close shave! They
must have guns made on purpose."

"Oh! when that one yonder speaks, look you, you have to hold your
tongue," said a sailor. "The Parisian would not be afraid to meet an
English man-of-war."

"It is all over with us," the captain cried in desperation; he had
pointed his telescope landwards, and saw not a sign from the shore. "We
are further from the coast than I thought."

"Why do you despair?" asked the General. "All your passengers are
Frenchmen; they have chartered your vessel. The privateer is a Parisian,
you say? Well and good, run up the white flag, and--"

"And he would run us down," retorted the captain. "He can be anything he
likes when he has a mind to seize on a rich booty!"

"Oh! if he is a pirate--"

"Pirate!" said the ferocious looking sailor. "Oh! he always has the law
on his side, or he knows how to be on the same side as the law."

"Very well," said the General, raising his eyes, "let us make up our
minds to it," and his remaining fortitude was still sufficient to keep
back the tears.

The words were hardly out of his mouth before a second cannon-shot,
better aimed, came c