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Courtenay very smartly followed suit in the matter of showing his colours, tacking at the same time and edging down toward us. This evidently shook the nerves of our unwelcome neighbour somewhat; he seemed to think two to one rather long odds, for he immediately bore away far enough to show us his gaff-end clear of his topsail, when he at once ran up the stars and stripes.
The moment that the boats arrived alongside I ordered the men out of them, and had them dropped astern, when sail was made and we stood down toward the settlement, with our ensign flying at the gaff-end.
The night had grown somewhat darker within the last hour, a few light clouds having come up to windward, spreading themselves over the sky and obscuring a good many of the stars; so that by the time we had been away from the ship about a quarter of an hour it was impossible to see anything of her except the light which twinkled at her gaff-end, and which might easily have been mistaken for a star.
Their doubts, such as they were, were set at rest when the frigate had approached within a mile of them, by her hoisting a tricolour at her gaff-end, and soon afterwards she sent a shot across their fore-foot as a polite intimation that they would oblige her by heaving-to.
In a few minutes more we had lifted the heads of her courses above the horizon, still edging away and keeping her about four points on our port bow; and presently, as we watched her, we saw the Stars and Stripes go soaring up to her gaff-end.
Let him stand on another three miles as he is going, and then we will show him who and what we are. Just so; there goes his bunting Dutch, as you thought. He is beginning to feel a little anxious. Perhaps it would ease his mind a bit if you were to run the tricolour up to our gaff-end, Mr Bowen."
By five bells she was hull-up; and while the skipper and mate were standing together eyeing her from the break of the poop the latter with the ship's telescope at his eye I saw the ensign of the stranger float out over her rail and go creeping up to her gaff-end. "There goes her ensign, sir," I shouted to the mate, who responded by remarking dryly: "Yes; I see it."
But if he should take any of his own gang with him say two of them that will leave only two and the cook aboard against six of you, which will make you two to one. In that case you must watch your chance, and, if you can find an opportunity, rise upon those three and retake the ship. And if you should succeed, hoist the ensign to the gaff-end as a signal to me that the ship is recaptured.
Gaily the good ship stemmed the tide as she ploughed her stately way up the river in the wake of the grimy little tug; and a right noble and beautiful sight did she present, in all the glory of fresh paint and newly-blacked rigging laid on during a spell of fine weather experienced just before entering the channel with her white canvas snugly stowed, yards laid accurately square, running-rigging hauled taut and neatly coiled down, with the house-flag floating at the main-royal- mast-head, the burgee at the mizen, and the red ensign at the gaff-end.
She was flying no colours when we anchored in such close proximity to her, a circumstance which I attributed to the fact that she was, to all appearance, the only vessel in the river, and I was, therefore, not much surprised when, a short time after our visit to her, I observed her skipper go aft and run up the American ensign to his gaff-end.
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