It was Tom Fairlie himself who was despatched to the merchant fleet to beg them to send all the boats they could to rescue the wounded and prisoners from the sinking war-ship. Almost the first vessel he boarded was that commanded by the skipper who owned the bulbous nose. And here a strange and a wonderful sight met his gaze. Arranged in double rank on the quarter-deck were about twenty or more sailors, each armed with a gun and bayonet, the skipper himself at their head drilling them. "Shoulder-houp!" he was shouting as Tom leaped down from the bulwark. The most comical part of the business was this: every one of the honest skipper's sailor-soldiers had a white linen shirt on over his dress, and as the men's legs were bare to the knees, they all looked as near to naked as decency would permit. While Tom stopped to laugh aloud, Captain Bulbous hastened to explain. "Were comin' to your assistance, I was, in half-a-minute. Stuck on them shirts so's they should know each other from the French. See? Do look curious, though, I must admit. What! the fight all over? Well, I _am_ sorry." Before eight bells in the morning watch the prisoners were distributed all over the fleet, with the exception of the wounded, who were under the charge of Dr. M'Hearty on board the saucy _Tonneraire_. CHAPTER XIII. A HAPPY SHIP. "On Friendship so many perfections attend That the rational comfort of life is a friend." DIBDIN. In the early part of the present century the poet Dibdin wrote with great feeling and spirit concerning the "generous Britons and the barbarous French." There is no doubt about it, the French in those days were far more cruel to their prisoners than ever we were to ours. And so the wounded on board the _Tonneraire_ were absolutely astounded at the kind treatment they experienced under good M'Hearty and his assistants. The surgeon himself looked in face--or figure-head--as rough and weather-beaten a sailor as ever trod a plank, but in heart he was as tender as any woman. More than one of his poor patients wrung the doctor's red hands, and, with tears rolling over their sallow cheeks, prayed Heaven to bless him for his goodness and sympathy.