rstood me, and within the time specified the stores
were on board.

In spite of all I could do, however, I could only get a mainsail,
foresail, fore-staysail, and jib. I had no topsails and no square sail.
Thus, should I be chased by an enemy, I should be, I felt, like a bird
with clipped wings, I should have very little chance of escaping. I got
some of the weeds scraped off the vessel's bottom, but still there were
more than enough remaining. Such good speed did I make, that before
three o'clock in the afternoon of that very day I was ready for sea, or,
rather, I was in such a condition that I could put to sea, though the
urgent necessity of the case alone warranted me in so doing.

"Well, sir," observed Grampus, with the familiarity of an old shipmate,
"if we comes to meet with Harry Cane in our cruise, it's like enough
that we shall be nowhere."

Just before we got under weigh, Captain Lambert, of his Majesty's ship
Niger, came on board. He shrugged his shoulders when he saw the
condition I was in.

"The admiral ordered me to get to sea as fast as I could," I remarked;
"I'm doing my best to obey him."

"That you are, Mr Hurry," he answered. "You've done very well--very
well indeed, I say. I wish you to keep a look-out for me off Saint
Domingo, and bring me any information you may have picked up. I am
under orders to sail to-morrow morning to cruise off that island with my
own ship, and with the `Bristol' and `Lowestoffe,' and I shall have my
tender with me. You will know the squadron by one of the three ships
having a poop, and from our being accompanied by a schooner. Now good
luck to you. I will not detain you."

"Thank you, sir," said I; "depend on it I will not disappoint you."

With a light breeze we stood out of the magnificent harbour of Port
Royal, leaving a fleet of merchantmen, which the news of the war with
France prevented from putting to sea. I certainly was not given to be
much influenced by outward circumstances, but I did not feel at all in
my usual spirits, and could not help fancying that some calamity was
going to occur to me. These sensations and ideas probably arose both
from my being overworked and from the unsatisfactory way in which my
vessel was fitted out; added to this, I knew that the seas would be
swarming with the enemy's privateers, both Americans and French, and
that I could neither fight nor run away. I considered over the latter
circumstance, and bethought me th