“What is all this?” demanded the stranger of Israel.

“It means that I am a Yankee impressed into the king’s service, and for their pains I have taken the cutter.”

Giving vent to his surprise, the officer looked narrowly at the body by the shrouds, and said, “This man is as good as dead, but we will take him to Captain Paul as a witness in your behalf.”

“Captain Paul?—­Paul Jones?” cried Israel.

“The same.”

“I thought so.  I thought that was his voice hailing.  It was Captain Paul’s voice that somehow put me up to this deed.”

“Captain Paul is the devil for putting men up to be tigers.  But where are the rest of the crew?”

“Overboard.”

“What?” cried the officer; “come on board the Ranger.  Captain Paul will use you for a broadside.”

Taking the moaning man along with them, and leaving the cutter untenanted by any living soul, the boat now left her for the enemy’s ship.  But ere they reached it the man had expired.

Standing foremost on the deck, crowded with three hundred men, as Israel climbed the side, he saw, by the light of battle-lanterns, a small, smart, brigandish-looking man, wearing a Scotch bonnet, with a gold band to it.

“You rascal,” said this person, “why did your paltry smack give me this chase?  Where’s the rest of your gang?”

“Captain Paul,” said Israel, “I believe I remember you.  I believe I offered you my bed in Paris some months ago.  How is Poor Richard?”

“God!  Is this the courier?  The Yankee courier?  But how now? in an English revenue cutter?”

“Impressed, sir; that’s the way.”

“But where’s the rest of them?” demanded Paul, turning to the officer.

Thereupon the officer very briefly told Paul what Israel told him.

“Are we to sink the cutter, sir?” said the gunner, now advancing towards Captain Paul.  “If it is to be done, now is the time.  She is close under us, astern; a few guns pointed downwards will settle her like a shotted corpse.”

“No.  Let her drift into Penzance, an anonymous earnest of what the whitesquall in Paul Jones intends for the future.”

Then giving directions as to the course of the ship, with an order for himself to be called at the first glimpse of a sail, Paul took Israel down with him into his cabin.

“Tell me your story now, my yellow lion.  How was it all?  Don’t stand, sit right down there on the transom.  I’m a democratic sort of sea-king.  Plump on the woolsack, I say, and spin the yarn.  But hold; you want some grog first.”

As Paul handed the flagon, Israel’s eye fell upon his hand.

“You don’t wear any rings now, Captain, I see.  Left them in Paris for safety.”

“Aye, with a certain marchioness there,” replied Paul, with a dandyish look of sentimental conceit, which sat strangely enough on his otherwise grim and Fejee air.