men stood at
their guns, with their cutlasses drawn, the captains with the trigger-
lines in their hands, ready to fire at the instant of collision. Harvey
was forward with Mr Sennitt; while little Markham and I stood by to
follow in the skipper's wake.

As the frigate drew up abreast of us, her captain sprang into the mizen
rigging and hailed through a speaking-trumpet, "Mais, Monsieur le
capitaine, why you shall not haul down votre drapeau; Vous avez se
rendre, n'est pas?"

Captain Brisac raised his hand to his mouth as though to reply; waving
it at the same time for the helmsman to sheer us alongside; the men with
the grappling irons being crouched under the bulwarks all ready to
heave; and all hands fore and aft straining forward like hounds in
leash, waiting breathlessly for the coming shock.

"What ship is that?" hailed the skipper; not that he wanted particularly
to know, just at that moment; he hoped to find out for himself very
shortly; but the question served to fill up time until the moment for
action should arrive.

"`L'Audacieuse;' fregate de --," began the French captain; when an
officer sprang into the rigging beside him, and said something in an
excited manner, pointing at us and gesticulating with frightful
vehemence.

In the meantime our helmsman, touching the wheel as daintily as though
we had been sailing a match, brought us alongside so cleverly that the
two ships touched with a shock which was barely perceptible, just enough
in fact "to swear by," as the gunner remarked.

"Heave!" shouted Sennitt to the men with the grappling irons, "Fire!"
roared the skipper; and away went our double broadside crash into the
Frenchman, eliciting such a chorus of shrieks and yells as might lead
one to suppose that Pandemonium had broken loose. Three or four of the
frigate's guns replied: and there was an ominous crashing among our
spars; but no one paused to ascertain the extent of the damage; and our
men had sprung like tigers into the frigate's rigging almost before our
own guns had exploded; they were, therefore, so far safe. Captain
Brisac made a dash at the frigate's mizen rigging while giving the word
to fire; with Markham and myself close upon his heels; but before he had
fairly got a hold of the ratlines a sponge was thrust out of one of the
upper-deck ports, catching him in the face, and inflicting such a blow
that he fell back upon us unfortunate mids, and would have gone down
between the two