But the mate was not a whit discomposed.  He swore a little, as did the men, yet without any heat:  indeed they joked among themselves about the prison fare they would soon be starving on; and when a shot from the frigate fell across our bows, the mate merely spat out the quid he was chewing, and ordered the flag to be hauled down.  Ten minutes after, the frigate was on our weather quarter, and dropping a boat, sent a crew aboard.

I was bitterly chagrined at this reversal of our fortunes, and when the Frenchmen who had been our prisoners were released, I went very sullenly with the rest into the boat that conveyed us to the frigate.  We were clapped under hatches, and confined in the hold, a noisome close place, lit by a single oil lamp that stunk horribly.

“Smite me if it bean’t Doggy Trang!” said the mate when the squat towsy-headed seaman who had conducted us below had left us.  “I seed him at Plymouth a year or two ago.”

I thought he was referring to the seaman, but it turned out that he meant the captain of the vessel, a young Frenchman named Duguay-Trouin, who was known to our men as a daring and courageous corsair.  Two years before this, they told me, when commanding the royal frigate La Diligente of thirty-six guns, he had run among a squadron of six English vessels in a fog, and after a stout resistance was forced to yield, not before a ball from the Monk had laid him low.  He was carried prisoner to Plymouth, whence he had cleverly escaped one night by scaling a wall and putting off in a little boat.

My companions soon accommodated themselves to their surroundings and fell asleep; but I was in too great a ferment to take matters so equably.  I had no love for the buccaneers who had kidnapped me at Bristowe, to be sure:  but my English pride was hurt at our capture by the French, and I quailed at the prospect of a long imprisonment in France.  Surely, thought I, I must have been born under an unlucky star, for misfortune has dogged me ever since I left my native town.

The old seaman brought us some food by and by.  He knew a little English, and in answer to a question from the mate explained that his captain was now hotly chasing the vessel which had run away, and if he caught it, the dogs of English would be sorry they ever showed their noses off the French coast.  The captain being Duguay-Trouin, we knew that if it came to an action his ship would be well handled, and we had noticed that she carried far heavier metal than our own vessel.  But the Dolphin had got a good start of her, and we did not suppose it possible that she could be overtaken.

I had never spent a more uncomfortable night than those hours in the hold.  I could not sleep; the light went out; and in the darkness rats scurried hither and thither, and I had to keep my legs and arms in motion to ward them off.  There was no glimmer of light from the outside, and it was only when the seaman again appeared with food that we knew morning had dawned.  He told us with a grin that our vessel was fast being overhauled, and assured us that she had certainly made her last privateering voyage under the English flag.  The mate cursed him vigorously, rather from habit than from ill temper, and the seaman shut us in, leaving us once more in total darkness.