a
midshipman,--divided them with him. The Captain insisted, as the last
act of his authority, that all the passengers should remain below,
during which time the ladies, at all events, employed themselves in
imitating the example of the sailors.

At last a shot was heard; then another and another followed, and then a
whole volley of musketry.

Captain Jones kept calmly walking his deck till the French frigate began
to fire. He then looked round: there was no ship in sight, no prospect
of escape; so, with a sad heart, hauling down the British ensign, he
ordered the topsails to be lowered and the courses brailed up, and thus
waited the approach of the enemy. What was the astonishment and rage of
all on deck to have a volley of musketry fired right down on them, with
the coolest deliberation, from the forecastle of the frigate as she
ranged up alongside, and then, passing ahead of the brig, rounded-to
near her.

"_Ah, betes_! we will teach you dogs of Englishmen to lead a French ship
such a chase as you have done when you have no chance of escape!"
shouted some one from the quarterdeck.

A bullet passed through Elmore's hat; another struck Captain Jones on
the side, but in the excitement of the moment he did not perceive that
he was hurt; while a third grazed True Blue's arm, wounding the skin and
making the blood flow rapidly. Without moving from where he stood or
saying a word, he took off his handkerchief and began to bind it up,
Harry Hartland and Tim Fid hurrying up with expressions of sorrow to
help him.

"Never mind this--it's nothing," he said, the tears starting into his
eyes. "But it's the French prison for Paul I'm thinking of. It will
break his heart. And those brutes may take me from him."

The frigate now lowered all her boats, and sent them, with their crews
armed to the teeth, on board the brig. The Frenchmen jumped on her deck
as if she had been a pirate captured after a desperate fight and long
chase.

Scarcely a word was spoken--not a question asked; but officers and men
were indiscriminately seized by the collars and hurled into the boats,
some of the French officers striking them with the flat side of their
drawn swords, and at the same time showering down the most abusive
epithets on their heads.

Captain Jones, whose appearance and bearing might have saved him from
insult, was seized by several men and thrust, with kicks, into the
nearest boat.

Just as the boats came alongside,