Those
were days removed by no great number of years from Rodney's famous
victory over de Grasse, and not yet had we completed the reduction of
the French West India Islands; the greatest glutton of fighting could
scarce fail to have his fill.
One night, after the frigate had left Bermuda, it had come on to blow
desperately hard from the north-west, and with every hour the gale
increased, till at length--when sail after sail, thundering and
threshing, had come in--the ship lay almost under bare poles, straining
in every timber and nosing her weather bow into the mountainous seas
that swept by at intervals, ere they roared away into the murk to
leeward.
It was the middle watch, and Watty had been standing for some time
holding on by the lee mizzen rigging, peering eagerly into the darkness.
"I've thought two or three times, sir, that I can see something to
leeward of us," he reported to the officer of the watch.
And presently the "something"--a mere patch of denser black in a
darkness emphasized more than relieved by the grey-white crests of
breaking seas--resolved itself into a large vessel, which as day broke
was seen to be a frigate, like themselves under the shortest of canvas,
and with all possible top-hamper down on deck.
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