the very guns of a big enemy, and I intended not to throw
such a chance away. I called my crew aft.

"My men," said I, "I won't ask you to stick to me to the last, because I
know you will. Those ships astern are enemies: we'll do our best to
escape from them, and if we are taken and the chance is given us, we'll
endeavour to heave our captors into the water, and to re-take the
schooner, won't we?"

"Yes, sir, that we will," answered Grampus. "I speak for the rest,
because I know their minds, and you are just the man to do the thing if
it is to be done."

I told the people that I was gratified at the good opinion they had
formed of me, and sent them back to their stations. I did not like the
look of things. The chances of escaping were very small, and the
prospects of a French prison in the climate of the West Indies was
anything but pleasant.

The breeze freshened, and we went tearing away through the smooth blue
sea, sending up the white sparkling foam on either side of our bows, and
leaving a long line of white astern; but I now sadly felt the want of a
square-sail and topsails. Had I possessed them to set, I fancied that I
could easily have kept ahead of my pursuers. My glass was seldom off
them, while I also kept it sweeping round ahead in the hopes, though
they were not very sanguine, of discovering the British squadron, for
which I had at first mistaken the enemy. On we flew, but the sharp line
of the horizon on every side was unbroken by the slightest dot or line
which might indicate an approaching sail. I watched the enemy. It was
soon too evident that they were coming up with us at a speed which sadly
lessened our prospects of escape. Still we kept beyond the range of
their guns. Unless, however, fortune changed in our favour, this could
not long be the case. Gradually I saw the chance of getting away
diminishing, and the conviction forced itself on me that we should all
be soon prisoners of war. I called Grampus to me; he was of the same
opinion.

"Well, then," said I with a sigh, "our first duty is to destroy all the
letters and despatches with which I have been entrusted. Bring them up
at once."

Grampus dived below, and returned with the despatches delivered to me by
Sir Peter Parker, as well as with some thirty or forty letters from the
merchants of Jamaica, addressed to the masters of their privateers
cruising off the island, with none of which I had hitherto fallen in. I
tied the