lves as to the
character of the approaching ship.

I anxiously scanned their countenances; as I observed them falling, so
my own hopes rose, that the sail in sight might prove an English ship of
war. I tried in vain to conceal my own anxiety by walking up and down
the deck, as I had done the day before.

The French officers seemed at length to have decided on some plan which
satisfied them. The _Mouche_ had already made all the sail she could
carry; she had royals set and studden sails out on either side, while
the lugger followed, under her ordinary canvas, in her wake. While I
was walking up and down, the first mate joined me.

"Ah, my friend!" said he, in very good English, "you hope the vessel in
sight is a countryman. That is very natural. We hope that if she is,
we shall escape her. We intend to do our best to get away, be assured
of that. If, however, we are taken, you will remember that all
Frenchmen are not savages, and that we were kind to you when you were
our prisoners."

"Indeed we all shall," I replied. "I hope, indeed, whenever Frenchmen
fall into the hands of the English, that my countrymen will always treat
them with kindness and consideration."

"That is good; that is the right thing," said the mate. "If go to war
we must, we need not make it more barbarous than it must be of
necessity."

I was surprised to find these expressions proceeding from the mouth of a
privateer's man. However, I believe that there were not many people of
his class like him. I certainly hoped that I might have an opportunity
of showing him that I meant what I said, and that we should very soon
again change our relative positions.

Mr Randolph, and La Motte, and the rest of the English prisoners, soon
afterwards came on deck, and eagerly watched with me the progress of the
stranger. There seemed to us very little doubt that she would cut us
off before we could possibly reach Saint Malo.

As the day drew on, however, the weather gave signs of changing. The
wind, which had been blowing steadily from the northward, chopped round
to the north-west, and then to the westward, growing stronger and
stronger, and very quickly kicking up an ugly sea, while thick rain
began to fall, increasing every instant in density.

We Englishmen looked at each other, and as the rain fell thicker, so did
our countenances fall lower and lower. The change of wind placed the
lugger and her prize to windward, and the stranger far a