“Now, man, we have no time to lose,” I said, as we stepped aboard.  “’Tis nearly dark, and Doggy-Trang, as you call him, may return any minute.  Luckily the tide is fast ebbing.

“Cast off, Joe; Bosun, run up the sail.  And we are only just in time.  Here they come.”

And indeed we had escaped only by the skin of our teeth, for I saw a number of French seamen coming down the streets and a horseman behind them.  No doubt it was Duguay-Trouin himself, and his coming had caused his men to turn out of the cabarets.  The brig was already moving from the jetty; the practised hands of my comrades were at work with the sails; and as the vessel slipped away quickly on the ebbing tide, from sheer lightheartedness and pleasure at the success of our trick they made the welkin ring with their cheers.

I was as hilarious as they.  The Frenchmen were crowding on the jetty, shouting, cursing, actually screaming to us to come back.  I mounted the bulwarks, and, clinging to the shrouds, took off my hat (or rather the captain’s) and waved it gaily towards Duguay-Trouin, who, having dismounted, had pushed through his men, and was evidently angrily demanding an explanation of the extraordinary scene he had arrived in time to witness.  The townsfolk and fishers were flocking down now in great numbers; the shouting increased to a veritable pandemonium, and as we scudded away farther and farther into the growing darkness I heard the scurrying of feet on the cobble stones and the creaking of blocks as the sails were run up on the smacks in the harbor.

They were going to pursue us, then!  I laughed aloud.  With nine good English tars aboard an English brig I thought I could snap my fingers at Duguay-Trouin in a smack.

But there was one danger, which, after the flush of jubilation had died down, I was quick to appreciate.  Duguay-Trouin’s privateer was lying off the point a few miles northward, and if, in answer to a signal, she were to join in the chase, I saw that our chances of getting away were small enough.  Even as the thought struck me, two musket shots were fired from the harbor.  These were doubtless a signal, but they could scarcely convey any real information:  the capture of the brig at its moorings was too unlikely a thing to have been provided against.  But the shots would set the privateer on the alert, and we must run no risks of encountering her.  So, instead of running straight out into the channel, we stood away up the coast, keeping the brig close-hauled.  She proved somewhat slow in working to windward, but we were now almost totally enveloped in darkness, and by hugging the shore were not so likely to be descried from the privateer as if we ran out to sea.