“My men,” cries Captain Paul Jones, “we’re off for France. We shall meet nasty weather, for it’s the beginning of winter, and I shall steer the northern course. It is to be a case of crack-on canvas, foul weather or fair: and, since the ship is oversparred and cranky, we must mind her day and night. To make all safe, the watch shall be lap-watched, so as to keep plenty of hands on deck. This will double your work, but I shall also double your grog. Now, my hearties, let every man among you do his duty by flag and ship. Burgoyne has surrendered, and it’s for us to carry the word to France.” “Shipmates,” observes Boatswain Jack Robinson, judgmatically, as the hands go tumbling forward, “shipmates, the old _Ranger_ is a damned comfortable ship. ‘Double watches, double work!’ says the skipper; but also ‘Double grog!’ says he. Wherefore, I says again, the old _Ranger_ is a damned comfortable ship.” Eight bells now, breakfast; and the Isles of Shoals are vanishing over the _Ranger_‘s stern. Suddenly a boyish voice strikes up: “So now we had him hard and fast, Burgoyne laid down his arms at last, And that is why we brave the blast, To carry the news to France.” Captain Paul Jones pauses in his short quarterdeck walk, cocks his ear, and listens. The hoarse crew take up the chorus: “Heigh ho! carry the news! Go carry the news to London, Tell old King George how he’s undone. Oh, ho! carry the news!” Boatswain Jack Robinson, observing Captain Paul Jones listening, becomes explanatory. “Only a bit of a ditty, Cap’n; the same composed by Midshipman Hill, d’ye see, in honor of this here cruise. A right good ballid, too, I calls it; and amazin’ fine for a lad of twenty, who hardly knows a reef-point from a gasket.” Vouchsafing this, Boatswain Jack Robinson rolls forward with walrus gait, chanting as he goes in a voice tuned by storms and broken across capstan bars, the hoarse refrain: “Oh, ho! carry the news!” And so the good ship _Ranger_ plows eastward on her course. Eighteen hours out of twenty-four, Captain Paul Jones holds the deck. In the end he has his reward. Just thirty days after the _Ranger_‘s anchors kissed the Portsmouth sands good-by, they go splashing into the dull waters of the Loire. CHAPTER XII--HOW THE “RANGER” TOOK THE “DRAKE” Four months slip by; it is April, and the idle _Ranger_ rides in the harbor of Brest. Morose, sore with inactivity, Captain Paul Jones seeks out Doctor Franklin at the philosopher’s house in Passy. “This lying by rusts me,” Captain Paul Jones is saying as he and Doctor Franklin have a turn in the garden. The latter likes the thin French sunshine, and gets as much of it as he may. “Yes, it rusts me--fills me with despair!” “What would you do, then?” asks Doctor Franklin, his coarse, shrewd face quickening into interest. “Have you a cruise mapped out?”