I saw the senior naval
officer this morning, and he said that if you did not come in during the
day he would send a frigate out in search of you; but I could see by his
manner that he thought it most likely that you had gone down. So you may
imagine how pleased we were when we made out your number, though we could
not for the life of us make out what those two craft flying the English
colours over the French, that came in after you, were. But of course they
had nothing to do with you. I suppose they were two privateers that had
been captured by one of our frigates, and sent in here with prize crews to
refit before going home. They have both of them been knocked about a bit."
"I will tell you about them directly, Colonel; it is rather a long story.
We have had a narrow squeak of it. We got through the storm pretty well,
but we had a bad time of it afterwards, and we owe it entirely to young
O'Connor that we are not, all of us, in a prison at Brest at present."
"You don't say so! Wait a moment, I will call his father here; he will be
glad to hear that the young scamp has behaved well. I may as well call
them all up; they will like to hear the story."
Turning to the group of officers who were standing on the quarter-deck a
short distance away, waiting to hear the news when the major had given his
report, he said: "You may as well come now and hear Major Harrison's
story; it will save his telling it twice.
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