her. Perhaps she would never see him again. The horror of it, the pity
of it, the peril of it.

Shot after shot the twelve-pounders of the Frenchman drove like dun hail
at the white timbers of the yacht, and her masts and spars were flying.
The privateer now came drawing down to where she lay lurching.

A hand touched Guida upon the shoulder. "Cheer thee, my dee-ar," said
Maitresse Aimable's voice. Below, Jean Touzel had eyes only for this
sea-fight before him, for, despite the enormous difference, the
Englishmen were now fighting their little craft for all that she was
capable. But the odds were terribly against her, though she had the
windward side, and the firing of the privateer was bad. The carronades
on her flush decks were replying valiantly to the twelve-pounders of the
brig. At last a chance shot carried away her mizzenmast, and another
dismounted her single great gun, killing a number of men. The
carronades, good for only a few discharges, soon left her to the fury of
her assailant, and presently the Dorset was no better than a battered
raisin-box. Her commander had destroyed his despatches, and nothing
remained now but to be sunk or surrender.

In not more than twenty minutes from the time the first shot was fired,
the commander and his brave little crew yielded to the foe, and the
Dorset's flag was hauled down.

When her officers and men were transferred to the Frenchman, her one
passenger and guest, the Rev. Lorenzo Dow, passed calmly from the gallant
little wreck to the deck of the privateer, with a finger between the
leaves of his book of meditations. With as much equanimity as he would
have breakfasted with a bishop, made breaches of the rubric, or drunk