foaming water.

Thus on she went for some time.

"If we had but our masts the enemy would have a hard job to come up with
us," observed Dicky Glover to Ronald. "As it is, I doubt whether she'll
find us, after all."

The two midshipmen were standing aft, looking over the taffrail.

"I wish that I thought we should escape her," answered Ronald; "but I
say--look!--look!--what's that out there?"

At that moment there was a break in the clouds, and through it a gleam
of light fell on the lofty sails of a ship coming up within gunshot
astern.

"The French frigate! I knew it would be so," said the rough voice of
old Rawson.

There could be little doubt that he was right. The stranger was
supposed by the French officers on board to be the "Atalante," a frigate
of the same size as the "Concorde." What hope then that the latter
could successfully resist her? Not many men besides Tom Calder would
have had any hope of escaping.

"Never cry out till you are caught," was his motto on similar occasions.

"That vessel astern has not yet made us out," he observed to Rawson.
"Though should she prove to be the `Atalante,' perhaps we may still
escape her, or she may be a friend after all."

"Not likely that last, sir," said Rawson, "but whether friend or foe,
here she comes! She has made us out clearly enough, too, that I'll be
sworn."

For a short time the clouds had closed in, and the stranger was hidden
from view, but they again breaking, she was seen like some huge dark
monster, towering up towards the sky, surging onwards on the starboard
quarter of the "Concorde."

"We shall soon see now, sir, what she is," observed Rawson to his
superior.

The bright flash of a gun, and an eighteen-pound shot, which came
crashing into the side of the prize left that point very little in
doubt.

"Man the starboard guns!" cried Mr Calder. "We'll show the Frenchmen
that though we have lost our wings we have still got our beaks."

With a hearty cheer--though, from the paucity of their numbers, not a
very loud one--the men went to the guns.

Could they beat off the enemy? They would try, at all events. Rawson
in a moment forgot his forebodings, and was all life and courage. The
enemy was seen to be shortening sail, so as not to pass the "Concorde."

"Fire!" cried Lieutenant Calder. The men obeyed with alacrity, but
scarcely had the shot left the mouths of the guns than the enemy replied
with a crashing broadside, which s