is commander
which he supposed to be blameable. Carne made an effort to get up and
kick him, but fell back with everything whirling around, and all human
standards inverted. Then the kindly Frenchman tucked him up, for his
face was blue and the chill of exhaustion striking into him. "I wish
you could eat a little bit," said Charron, gently; but Carne gave a push
with his elbow. "Well, you'll be worse before you are better, as the
old women say in your country. But what am I to do about the two British
ships--for they are sure to be British--now in sight?" But Carne turned
his back, and his black boots dangled from the rim of his bunk as if
there was nothing in them.

"This is going a little too far," cried Charron; "I must have some
orders, my commander. You understand that two English ships are
manifestly bearing down upon us--"

"Let them come and send us to the bottom--the sooner the better," his
commander groaned, and then raised his limp knuckles with a final effort
to stop his poor ears forever.

"But I am not ready to go to the bottom, nor all the other people of our
fourteen hands"--the Frenchman spoke now to himself alone--"neither will
I even go to prison. I will do as they do at Springhaven, and doubtless
at every other place in England. I will have my dish of pork, which is
now just crackling--I am capable of smelling it even here--and I will
give some to Sam Polwhele, and we will put heads together over it. To
outsail friend Englishman is a great delight, and to out-gun him would
be still greater; but if we cannot accomplish those, there will be some
pleasure of outwitting him."

Renaud Charron was never disposed to make the worst of anything. When he
went upon deck again, to look out while his supper was waiting, he found
no change, except that the wind was freshening and the sea increasing,
and the strangers whose company he did not covet seemed waiting for no
invitation. With a light wind he would have had little fear of giving
them the go-by, or on a dark night he might have contrived to slip
between or away from them. But everything was against him now. The wind
was so strong, blowing nearly half a gale, and threatening to blow
a whole one, that he durst not carry much canvas, and the full moon,
approaching the meridian now, spread the white sea with a broad flood of
light. He could see that both enemies had descried him, and were acting
in concert to cut him off. The ship on his weather bow was a