But all this was forgotten when Dicky caught sight of the Indomptable, for Polly was still in Portsmouth, and not many days passed without the captain's daughter coming on board the big frigate with her father for an hour or two. Polly loved the Indomptable, as she had done the old Xantippe, and was quite as much at home on her, although she no longer had a little bed in her father's cabin. Captain Sarsfield looked very serious when Dicky told him about it, and things generally began to look grave when the French ambassador came down to Portsmouth and looked at the Alceste, and then took the French captain back to London with him. Dicky was not a whit behindhand in making his report to the Admiralty about the French ship's omission--but that was all he was entitled to do. The jabbing the boat-hook through the Alceste's cabin windows, and the smashing her boat, while the Hornet's first lieutenant was at the wheel and her captain on the bridge, was altogether another thing. And in a very little time indeed came the order for a court-martial, and young Captain Carew was ordered to turn his ship over to his first lieutenant, and consider himself under arrest. What a stir it made! And the people all said, "If they break him for crippling a ship twice his size, without getting a scratch, they will have hard work finding another captain who can do it; and if every man resented an affront to the British ensign like that, why, it never would be safe to affront it." The captains, sitting stern and solemn around the table in the admiral's cabin, heard the whole story. In vain they tried to bring out that accident had something to do with it; but Dicky, cool and calm, declared openly that he had done it on purpose, and would do it again, to any man that did not salute the ensign flying on his Majesty's ship Hornet--if he could. The courts-martial in those times did not keep a man long in suspense. There was indeed a fearful dispatch in taking an officer's commission away from him. One whole May day was Dicky on the rack, and he knew his fate before he left the admiral's ship. He left it a free man--free with the dreadful freedom of a man whose country disowns him. Track would be kept of him, so the Admiralty could set its seal of condemnation on him too, but otherwise he could go where he pleased. The first use he made of this new and terrible liberty, was to go on board the Indomptable, where he was shown into the captain's cabin. Dicky was as white as a sheet, but he held his head up manfully. "Captain Sarsfield" he said "I am a ruined man. I have been dismissed the service of my country. I came to say that although I am not conscious of having done anything to disgrace my name, I can no longer ask your daughter to accept it."