The rules of the road at sea have been from time immemorial practically the same for sailing ships, and a vessel close hauled has the right of way of one going free on the wind. When the packet was first sighted she was running with the wind almost astern and making good time, as she tossed the white foam before her. Now, the Surprise was close hauled on the starboard tack, and it would have required but a little careful sailing to bring her across the packet’s bows. The latter had flown a large English ensign, but Conyngham had shown no flag at all, although the big red and white striped ensign with the rattlesnake across the field lay on the deck ready to be hoisted to the peak. Nearer and nearer the two vessels came. The helmsman on the packet was evidently perplexed as to the intentions of the approaching lugger, for he had swung his vessel off in order to give the latter room to cross his forefoot. But every time he did so the Surprise would luff a little, for it was Conyngham’s intention to get close under the packet’s stern and board her if possible without firing a shot. The trick worked like magic. In a few minutes the Englishman was so close that the features of the helmsman could be seen distinctly. He was not in the least suspicious, for he gazed in silence at the approaching lugger, contemptuously smiling at her apparently clumsy sailing. A man who had been walking up and down the deck came to the rail as if he supposed that the Surprise was about to hail him, and making ready to answer. Conyngham had kept his men below well out of sight, though they were all armed with pistols and cutlasses ready to rush on deck at a given signal. Just before he came under the Englishman’s stern, he let go his sheets and swinging off suddenly, his bowsprit swept over the stranger’s taffrail, beneath which appeared the words “Prince of Orange” in big red letters. The cutter, whose sails, now deprived of the wind, flapped uselessly, lost headway. Another second, and the Surprise struck so gently that it hardly started the paint on her cutwater, a grapple was thrown on board, and from the forward hatch a score of men poured over the bows upon the other’s deck. Captain Baxter, the English skipper, was in the cabin at breakfast with five passengers, four of them merchants and one a young secretary bearing dispatches to the Dutch Government, when the mate shouted through the transom that a strange vessel had run afoul of them, and that they were being boarded by pirates! “Great heavens!” exclaimed one of the merchants in consternation. “Pirates in the English Channel! Bless my soul, never!” Before Captain Baxter could gain the foot of the companion-ladder a figure stepped into the cabin. “Who are you, and what are you doing aboard my vessel?” roared the captain, reaching for a cutlass that hung from one of the berths that lined the sides.