.
Here we found a number of midshipmen seated at a table, employed in
various ways. They greeted us warmly, and were all eager to know our
adventures, which we told them while discussing the meal placed before
us. Scarcely, however, had I finished eating, when my head dropped on
the table, and there I should have sat, had not one of the
assistant-surgeons aroused me and advised me to turn in. I slept on, as
did Nettleship and Tom, till the hammocks were piped up next morning,
and, if left alone, should not have awoke for hours afterwards.

We all three, though still weak, felt pretty well able to get about, and
were in reality in a better state than many of the officers and men, who
were suffering from the effect of the West Indian climate. I never saw
so pale and haggard a crew. We were treated with the greatest kindness
by our new messmates, and Nettleship was asked into the ward-room, to
give a further account of what had happened to us. We had indeed ample
reason to be thankful for our preservation, when so many on board our
own and other ships had perished.

In a couple of days we were as well as ever, and, as many of the mates
and midshipmen were too ill to do duty, we were directed to take their
places. Larry, as usual, made himself at home with his fiddle, and soon
set the seamen and French prisoners jigging away, as he had done on
board other ships.

We were standing on with all the canvas the battered old _Hector_ could
carry, with the wind from the southward, when the look-out aloft
announced two sail away to leeward. One of the lieutenants, with his
telescope on his back, immediately went to the main-topmast cross-trees
to have a look at them.

"As far as I can make out, they are two frigates, sir, coming up before
the wind," he said to the captain when he came down.

"Are they English or French?" asked the captain. "According to my
judgment, sir, they are French," was the answer.

The captain took a few turns on deck, and then again sent aloft. The
lieutenant, on his return, pronounced his opinion more decidedly that
they were French, and both large frigates. The captain on this ordered
the drum to beat to quarters, and the usual preparations were made for
battle. Evening was approaching, and it might be well on in the night
before the enemy could be up to us.

Although the _Hector_ was a 74-gun ship, she in reality only carried
fifty-two guns, and, from her battered condition, was not f