r action."

The Indiaman was kept on her course, but all the sail she could possibly
carry was set on her. The stranger was at this time to the south-east,
her hull just rising above the horizon.

The Indiaman was before the wind, so was the stranger, but her courses
were brailed up, and she was evidently waiting for some purpose or
other; she certainly, at present, did not look like an object to be
dreaded.

The alarm of the ladies gradually subsided, till they began to wonder
why it should be thought necessary to make such preparations for
fighting; why the shot was got up, the powder-tubs filled, and the guns
loaded, and boarding nettings made ready for rigging.

For some time the stranger did not appear to alter her position. When,
however, at length the Indiaman, under all sail, began to put forth her
speed, giving evidence that she might be many leagues to the southward
by nightfall, the ship in the distance let fall her courses, and her
head coming round, she was seen to be steering a course which would
intersect that of the "Osterley."

"It will come to a fight, sir, I suspect," observed the captain to
Colonel Armytage.

"So much the better, for I suppose that there is but little doubt that
we shall beat off the enemy," answered the colonel. "We have plenty of
men, and some serviceable guns, and I trust your fellows will do their
duty like men."

"I trust so, too, sir; but probably that ship out there has more men and
longer guns than we have," said the captain, gravely. "We should not
conceal from ourselves that the contest will be a severe one, at all
events, and the termination doubtful. I would not say this to the crew,
or to the passengers generally, but in the event of disaster, how are we
to protect the helpless beings committed to our charge--the ladies and
children? Some of these Frenchmen, I have heard, are fiends incarnate
in the moment of victory, and if we offer a stout resistance, and are
conquered at last, what is to be done?"

"I should feel inclined to blow up the ship rather than run any risk of
the ladies suffering violence," exclaimed the colonel, pacing the deck
in an agitated manner.

"That were scarcely right in the sight of God, or wise in that of men,"
said the captain, calmly: "I had to propose that at a signal which the
chief officer who survives shall give they all assemble in the main
cabin, and that then we rally round them, and refuse to yield till the
enemy agree