The third night was so dark and gusty, that neither Quentin Kennedy nor Eugene de Ribeaupierre turned in, but remained at the table much later than usual, listening to the somewhat piratical yarns and experiences of M. Jehan Marin, a short, thick-set, and savage-looking fellow, who wore a tricoloured nightcap, a pea-jacket, and a broad black belt, with a square brass buckle of most melodramatic size. He viewed Quentin evidently with intense dislike, as one of those sacré Anglais, whom he hated as so many snakes or other reptiles, and to this sentiment was added a profound contempt for him as a soldier. Quentin was soon sensible of all this, but deemed it neither safe nor worth his while to notice it; besides, the life of a prisoner of war was deemed of very little value by land or sea in those days. On this night, just as they went on deck to have a last glance at the pitchy blackness amid which _Le Bien Aimé_ was careering, a flash broke through it, and a cannon-shot boomed across her forefoot; another flash followed, and the shot went through her foresail, which was bellying out upon the wind. "Tonnerre de Dieu! what is that?" cried M. Marin, choking and sputtering with passion and alarm, as he jumped upon a carronade and peered to windward, from whence the assault came, but could see nothing, so intense was the darkness. Boom! another heavy gun came, and now he could make out a strange ship, looming large and black on the larboard bow, and carrying an enormous spread of canvas, considering the nature of the night, and it was the guns of her starboard-quarter that were tickling _Le Bien Aimé_ in this rough fashion. "Nombril de Beelzebub!" bellowed Captain Marin, "here we are in action without seeing or knowing who the devil it is with! Beat to quarters--pipe up the hammocks and open the magazine!" Just as he was speaking and gesticulating furiously, another shot knocked the fiddle-head of the _Bien Aimé_ all to splinters; so matters were looking decidedly serious. By this time, and long ere the drum beat, his crew, half dressed, were all at their quarters, and the hammocks were bundled anyhow into the side nettings. "Clear away those weather-guns--cast loose the lashings, and load!" shouted Marin; "stand by the watch to shorten sail; 'way aloft and hand the topgallant sails; small-arm men, aft, and blaze away!" _Le Bien Aimé_ was now hove full in the wind's eye, so that the next shot from this strange ship went no one knew where. There were terrible confusion, growling, swearing, with lack of discipline, on board, but no lack of pluck among the crew, and fifty of the most finished ragamuffins that ever sailed from the Loire or Brest stood to their guns. The next cannon that flashed from the strange ship made Quentin, who clung to a belaying pin on the port side, spring backwards involuntarily, the red light of the explosion seemed so close; but it enabled him to see for an instant the large ship with her lee side full of men.