"Just nineteen, and you succeeded in getting your friend safely out of that mob of scoundrels in the Abbaye, got your elder sister out of La Force, you fooled Robespierre and the Revolutionists in Nantes, and you carried those two girls safely through France, rescued them from the white lugger, and got them on board the Trois Freres! It sounds like a miracle." "The getting them on board the Trois Freres was, you must remember, my sister's work. I had failed and was in despair. Suspicions were already aroused, and we should assuredly have been arrested if it had not been that she had won the heart of Adolphe's wife by nursing her child in its illness." "That is so," the captain agreed; "and they must have good courage too that they didn't betray themselves all that time. And now I tell you what I will do, monsieur. If you will write a letter to your sister in Paris, saying that you and the other two have reached England in safety, I will when I return send it by sure hand to Paris. To make all safe you had better send it to the people she is staying with, and word it so that no one will understand it if they were to read it. Say, for example: "'My dear Sister, You will be glad to hear that the consignment of lace has been safely landed in England,' Then you can go on saying that 'your mother is better, and that you expect to be married soon, as you have made a good profit out of the lace,' and so on; and just sign your name--'Your brother Henri.' "I can trust the man who will deliver it in Paris, but it is just as well always to be on the safe side. If your letter is opened and read, anyone will suppose that it is written by a sailor belonging to one of the Nantes luggers." Harry thanked the captain warmly for the offer, and said that the letter would indeed be an immense comfort to his sister and friend. "I will tell the man that he is to ask if there is any answer," the captain said. "And if your sister is as sharp as you are she will write the same sort of letter, and I will bring it across with me to England the first voyage I make after I get it." Harry slept down in the forecastle with the crew, the captain keeping on deck all night. He was awoke by an order shouted down the forecastle for all hands to come on deck; and hurrying up with the rest found that the sun had just risen. The day was beautifully fine, and to Harry's surprise he found that those on deck had already lowered the great lugsails. "What is it, captain?" he asked. "There is a sail there I don't like," the captain said. "If I am not mistaken that is an English frigate." There were several sails in sight, but the one to which the captain pointed was crossing ahead of the lugger. Her hull could not be seen, and indeed from the deck only her topsails and royals were visible above the water. "I hope she will not see us," the captain said. "We are low in the water, and these stump masts could not be seen at that distance even by a look-out at the mast-head.