The gale freshening to a downright storm, we were, as I was afterwards told, compelled to run before it under a storm jib. At the time I knew only that I was too seasick to care whether the ship floated or foundered. But on the fourth day the storm abated to a half gale, and the sloop, being brought about and put under more sail, became so much steadier that I made shift to eat a scant meal and crawl on deck. Such of the weary-eyed crew as took heed of me grinned at the pale-faced landsman, but they took on another look when at noon I helped the captain to take his observations and work out the result. I had not spent all those months with Pike for nothing. Lafitte appeared highly amused at this discomfiture of his tars, and promptly declared in their hearing that I should be rated as third mate. The following day, when I really found my sea-legs, he proposed in all seriousness that I should accept the berth. Having candidly declared his bitter hatred of the British, he sought to sting me to a like hatred by relating in full detail the account of the shameful, brutal outrage of the _Leopard_ upon the _Chesapeake_, off Hampton Roads, hardly more than a month past. Despite my anger and humiliation at this unavenged insult to my flag, I felt no longing for a seafaring life other than such as was necessary to win me my lady. Lafitte acknowledged that, in my situation, my decision was probably a wise one. But he went on with the statement that he, for one, would live and die in the contest against tyranny on the high seas, and repeated a terrible vow which he had taken against all Britons and Spaniards. His hatred of the first I could well understand, since he was a Frenchman. But his enmity to the latter, now the allies of his country, I could explain only as the result of private injuries. On this point he was as reserved as he was free in expressing his determination to wreak vengeance upon the ships of both nations. Not two days later we were roused at dawn by the muffled cry of "Ship, ho!" and slipping up on deck, found the _Siren_ within a cable's-length of a British frigate. The surprise was complete, for the British sighted us within a few moments after they were themselves seen. Detecting Lafitte's attempt to set more sail, they fired a solid shot across our bows. Our captain could do no other than obey this grim signal to heave-to, since disobedience would have meant the blowing of the sloop to matchwood by the frigate's broadside of long eighteen-pounders.