ssion of mingled horror and disgust which slowly overspread the
features of the skipper and the first luff, like a summer cloud sailing
slowly across the disc of the full moon, would have been irresistibly
laughable under other circumstances, but as matters stood nobody felt
the slightest inclination to laugh.

"_Prisoners_!!" ejaculated Mr Annesley. He was apparently too full for
further utterance, but he had already said quite enough. "We are
prisoners!" flew from mouth to mouth, like wildfire, and in less than
two minutes every man in the ship had become acquainted with our
position. Every officer came crowding aft, to ascertain the truth of
the startling rumour, and a more disgusted and dejected-looking group of
mortals than we appeared, it would have been difficult to find.

The disagreeable announcement once made, the French officers hastened to
place matters upon a more agreeable basis, exerting themselves to the
utmost to get up a lively general conversation, and explaining how it
was that we had so easily run into the trap. A very few words sufficed
for this, the matter was so excessively simple.

It appeared, from the French officers' statement, that Lord Hood, after
sustaining a long and harassing siege of nearly four months, had, on the
night of the 18th of the previous December, been at length compelled to
evacuate Toulon, he finding it utterly impossible to hold it any longer
with the small force at his command--barely 17,000 men--against the
overwhelming numbers of the besiegers, who mustered close upon 50,000.

But though unable to prevent the Republicans from obtaining possession
of this important place, the British admiral resolved that it should
pass into their hands, comparatively speaking, valueless. Immediately,
therefore, that it was finally decided to retire from the place, he set
on foot preparations to destroy the arsenal, magazines, etcetera, and
such of the French ships as it was deemed inexpedient to take away with
him; and though he was unable to carry out in their entirety the whole
of his arrangements, it was pretty evident, from our informants'
account, that the destruction actually effected was something enormous;
the dockyard, with its various storehouses, the magazines, two powder-
ships, and two 74-gun ships of war--the "Heros," and "Themistocle"--
being burnt.

It must have been a magnificent and awe-inspiring sight to witness these
destructive operations, effected as they