In answer to his questions I told him who I was, and where from, and how I
came to be on the spar.

"But, by ----!" he swore lustily, when I came to the flying flails and the
shooting of the drowning men, "that was sheer bloody murder!"

"Murder as cruel as ever was done," I said, and told him further of the
round hole that bored itself in John Ozanne's forehead right before my
eyes.

"By ----!" he said again, and more lustily than ever. "I hope to God we
don't run across him! Which way did he go, did you say?"

"He went off nor'-east, but his prowling-ground is hereabouts. What guns do
you carry, sir?"

"Ten eighteen-pound carronades."

I shook my head. "He could play with you as he did with us, and you could
never hit back."

"---- him!" said the old man, and went out much disturbed.

The cheery little doctor chatted with me for a few minutes, and told me
that both they and the Indiaman we saw _Red Hand_ looting belonged to the
convoy we had seen pass three days before, but, having sprung some of their
upper gear in the storm, they had had to put into Lisbon for repairs, and
the rest could not wait for the two lame ducks.

"Think he'll come across us?" he asked anxiously.