'Twas drawing towards sunset when she signalled to us that a sail was in sight. This news caused much commotion among us, still more when our own lookout cried that the vessel bearing towards us under press of sail out of the west was beyond doubt a frigate, and in all likelihood a Frenchman. I knew our case would be parlous if indeed it was so, for neither the privateer nor the merchant barque we had captured was armed in any wise to match a line-of-battle ship. Moreover 'twas unlikely that in our partly crippled condition we could out-sail the vessel: and when the mate, taking a look at the stranger through his perspective glass, declared that she was certainly French, our only hope was that darkness might shroud us before she came within striking distance--a slender chance at the best, for, though 'twas drawing towards dusk, the sky was wonderfully clear. We held on our course, there being nothing else for us to do. The frigate loomed ever larger, and my heartbeats quickened as I wondered what the event would be. I did not dream that we should strike our flag as the Frenchman had done, and thought that we, having two vessels against one, would at least make a fight of it. But I was struck with mingled indignation and dismay when I saw the Dolphin crowd on all sail and bear away northwards, leaving us to our fate. I thought it a scurvy action on the part of Captain Cawson, and Dilly could not persuade me that he could have done us no good by remaining. But the mate was not a whit discomposed. He swore a little, as did the men, yet without any heat: indeed they joked among themselves about the prison fare they would soon be starving on; and when a shot from the frigate fell across our bows, the mate merely spat out the quid he was chewing, and ordered the flag to be hauled down. Ten minutes after, the frigate was on our weather quarter, and dropping a boat, sent a crew aboard. I was bitterly chagrined at this reversal of our fortunes, and when the Frenchmen who had been our prisoners were released, I went very sullenly with the rest into the boat that conveyed us to the frigate. We were clapped under hatches, and confined in the hold, a noisome close place, lit by a single oil lamp that stunk horribly. "Smite me if it bean't Doggy Trang!" said the mate when the squat towsy-headed seaman who had conducted us below had left us. "I seed him at Plymouth a year or two ago."