as, they would be at very long gun-shot dead to leeward. To remain
where he was, however, formed no part of his plan, for he was fully
resolved to maintain all his advantages. The great difficulty was to
take possession of his prize, the sea running so high as to render it
questionable if a boat would live. Lord Morganic, however, was just of
an age and a temperament to bring that question to a speedy issue. Being
on the weather-beam of la Victoire, as her flag came down, he ordered
his own first lieutenant into the larger cutter, and putting
half-a-dozen marines, with the proper crew, into the boat, it was soon
seen dangling in the air over the cauldron of the ocean; the oars
on-end. To lower, let go, and unhook, were the acts of an instant; the
oars fell, and the boat was swept away to leeward. A commander's
commission depended on his success, and Daly made desperate efforts to
obtain it. The prize offered a lee, and the French, with a national
benevolence, courtesy, and magnanimity, that would scarcely have been
imitated had matters been reversed, threw ropes to their conquerors, to
help to rescue them from a very awkward dilemma. The men did succeed in
getting into the prize; but the boat, in the end, was stove and lost.

The appearance of the red flag of England, the symbol of his own
professional rank, and worn by most under his own orders, over the white
ensign of France, was the sign to Sir Gervaise that the prize-officer
was in possession. He immediately made the signal for the fleet to
follow the motions of the commander-in-chief. By this time, his own
main-sail, close-reefed, had taken the place of the torn top-sail, and
the Plantagenet led off to the southward again, as if nothing unusual
had occurred. Daly had a quarter of an hour of extreme exertion on board
the prize, before he could get her fairly in motion as he desired; but,
by dint of using the axe freely, he cut the wreck adrift, and soon had
la Victoire liberated from that incumbrance. The fore-sail and fore and
mizzen stay-sails were on the ship, and the main-sail, close-reefed also,
was about to be set, to drag her-from the _melee_ of her foes, when her
ensign came down. By getting the tack of the latter aboard, and the
sheet aft, he would have all the canvass set the gale would allow, and
to this all-essential point he directed his wits. To ride down the
main-tack of a two-decked ship, in a gale of wind, or what fell little
short of a real gale, w