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No decision was arrived at, and the ship drove onwards towards the coast of Finisterre. There were harbours and shelter there in abundance; but judgment and good pilotage was required to take advantage of them, and these qualities were wanting on board the "Atalante." The English officers stood grouped together, affording a strong contrast to their French captors.
When first Lorenzo de Medici had sent Leonardo to his friend's court to charm the Moro's ears with the surpassing sweetness of his playing, he had brought with him a well-known musician and maker of instruments, Atalante Migliorotti, who stood high in Lodovico's favour, and spent much of his time at Milan.
When the transfer of prisoners had been accomplished, the "Atalante" took the "Concorde" in tow and made sail, but the wind increasing, the hawser broke, and both ships had to look out for their safety independently of each other.
And there was one more gifted artist, who, like Atalante Migliorotti, was both a skilled musician and a mechanic, and whose whole life was devoted to the construction of musical instruments of the choicest quality, Lorenzo Gusnasco of Pavia.
I never could extract a farthing; and when I complained one day to Messer Bernardo da Bibbiena and to Atalante, representing that I could not stop longer in Rome, and that I should be forced to go away with God's grace, Messer Bernardo told Atalante he must bear this in mind, for that he wished me to have money, whatever happened."
At that moment there was a break in the clouds, and through it a gleam of light fell on the lofty sails of a ship coming up within gunshot astern. "The French frigate! I knew it would be so," said the rough voice of old Rawson. There could be little doubt that he was right. The stranger was supposed by the French officers on board to be the "Atalante," a frigate of the same size as the "Concorde."
Two of these frigates made straight for the French flotilla, which fled in wild confusion, covered by the undaunted Vauquelin in the Atalante, which fought a gallant rearguard action all the twenty miles to Pointe-aux-Trembles, where she was driven ashore and forced to strike her colours, after another, and still more desperate, resistance of over two hours.
Several were killed, others were wounded, and they soon found themselves completely overpowered. No time was lost in conveying them on board the ship which had captured them, which proved to be the "Atalante," a consort of their hard-won prize.
What hope then that the latter could successfully resist her? Not many men besides Tom Calder would have had any hope of escaping. "Never cry out till you are caught," was his motto on similar occasions. "That vessel astern has not yet made us out," he observed to Rawson. "Though should she prove to be the `Atalante, perhaps we may still escape her, or she may be a friend after all."
We find Isabella d'Este writing to her friend, Niccolo da Correggio, in 1493, begging him to procure her the loan of a silver lyre, given him by Atalante, that she may learn to play this instrument; and in the following year the marchioness herself stood godmother to the Florentine musician's infant daughter, who was called Isabella after her illustrious sponsor.
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