h of June,
1694, and was received right boisterously by the Trouin family.

"My son," spoke his aged mother, "you were indeed not intended for the
law, for lawlessness seems to be your particular fancy."

So the delighted Trouins put him in charge of a splendid privateersman
mounting forty-eight guns, sailing under the simple name of
_Francois_, and, as she forged valiantly into the English channel, her
skipper chanted an old French song, which ran,--

"Sons of St. Malo, hark to my lay,
With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down.
For we'll capture a lugger ere close of the day,
With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down.

"She's filled with gold nuggets, her crew is asleep,
Then board her, and take her, for dead men are cheap,
We'll spike them and pike them, like so many sheep.
With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down."

It was not long before a sail was sighted, and, on the 12th day of
January, 1695, the stout, little _Francois_ overhauled a solitary
timber ship, loaded with huge trees, bound to England from the good
town of Boston in New England. She was an easy capture, and, Du
Guay-Trouin smiled with joy when her skipper said:

"Three other lumber ships are in the offing. But they are under convoy
of the frigate _Nonsuch_ with forty-eight guns, and the _Falcon_ with
thirty-eight cannon. Look out my bold sea-dog, there'll be trouble."

But the French mariner laughed.

"It's just what I'm searching for," said he, and forthwith he swung
the stout _Francois_ in wide circles, with look-outs at every
mast-head.

"Sail ho!" shouted the watch, next morn, and there, off the port bow,
were the three merchantmen strung out in a line, with the two
protecting gun-boats to windward.

Like a greyhound the _Francois_ swept down upon them, and with the
audacity of despair, the privateersman of St. Malo ranged alongside of
the _Falcon_ and opened fire. The engagement was short. In an hour's
time the guns of the Englishman were silent and a white pennon
fluttered from the mizzen-mast.

The _Nonsuch_, meanwhile, had been ranging to windward in a vain
endeavor to bring her guns to bear upon the Frenchman without
crippling her own mate, and--as the _Francois_ drifted away from the
lurching _Falcon_--she bore down to within twenty yards, luffed, and
spanked a rakish broadside into the privateer.

"Board her!" shouted Du Guay-Trouin. "Board her!" and, bringing the
wheel close around, he swung the bow of the _F