"If the Frenchman closes us, as he may do, we're a French brig. No man will speak a word while we're within earshot. Do you understand?"
"Oui, oui, sir," answered O'Neill cheekily. "But look now, Mr. Quinn, sir," he added hastily, "I've a word or so of the Frenchy lingo, and I know a song in French, so I do."
He began to sing a rowdy French drinking-song in a very passable tenor. Septimus repressed a smile.
"That'll do," he said. "You can sing that the moment we sight the Frenchman. No one else will utter a sound. In a moment I'll have you looking more like Frogs."
He hastened below with Wallace at his heels. At the locked door of the forecastle he halted and made the seaman cock and present his musket. Then he unlocked the door and threw it wide, so that the prisoners could see the weapon levelled at them.
"Attendez!" he said sharply as the ten Frenchmen inside began to talk all at the same time. "This musket is loaded. Every man here who has a cap will throw it at my feet-quickly!"
After a short hesitation, seven knitted woollen caps of various bright colours, the typical headgear of the French sailor in the Mediterranean, were flung on the deck in front of him. Septimus pointed a finger at one of the smaller men.
"You, there! Take off your jersey and give it to me!"
With much grumbling the little man obeyed.
"This seaman will remain outside the door to shoot any of you who makes a noise," warned the midshipman as, having picked up the garments, he locked the door again.
Before returning on deck he repeated his order in English for Wallace's benefit and then took off his blue uniform coat and pulled on the jersey. It was striped red and white and smelled of fish, but it would serve. As he came up the companionway, Frith, a lean grim-faced seaman, was just sliding down the stay of the mainmast.
"I didn't want to hail the deck, sir," he explained when Septimus demanded why he had left his post. "The Frenchman's near enough to hear a hail. She's turned northerly-I'm pretty sure she's got a lookout and he's seen our mastheads."
"Very good," nodded the midshipman. "Take these for' ard and see that every man wears one." He gave Frith four of the woollen caps. "And tell the fools to stow that noise!" he added as a burst of laughter came to his ears. "We may dodge the Frogs yet if they keep quiet!"
Frith ran for' ard and Septimus, ramming a red woollen cap on his head, hurried to the poop. Beamish's eyes opened wide when he saw his young senior officer attired in a striped jersey and cap.
"It's ten to one they've seen us," explained Septimus in a low voice. He gave one of the remaining caps to the helmsman Dobbs and the other to Beamish. "Any moment now they may come out of the mist. When they do, wave your hand as if you know someone on board."
"Aye aye, sir," responded Beamish, trying to fit a very small sky-blue cap on to his massive head. "But--beg pardon, sir, but you've got your spectacles on."
Septimus, who had forgotten to remove them when he hurried up from the cabin, decided that they would add to his disguise and left them in place. He always felt more confident in an emergency with the familiar things resting on the bridge of his nose.
And now there was nothing to do but wait. The brig rolled very slowly through the oily grey waves, the circle of mist moving with her, as it seemed. The eyes of all on deck were on the wall of vapour on her larboard beam, for if the French vessel had seen the Blanche she must presently emerge through that grey curtain. Minutes that seemed like hours went by. Septimus, pacing the poop with his hands clasped behind him, had time to reflect upon their dangerous position. If the French warship found them, and their deception was detected, they could at best expect to inhabit a French prison for a very long time. He looked up at the tricolour flag flapping at the yardarm. It was considered legitimate in sea warfare to sail under false colours, so long as a vessel's true colours were hoisted before she began aggressive action. There was nothing unsporting about his attempt to save his command by that method.
He glanced at Beamish and nearly chuckled out loud. The huge seaman, with the tiny cap balanced absurdly on his mop of towcoloured hair, looked very unlike a Frenchman. Then he remembered his own appearance and chuckled in earnest. With his small figure enveloped in a striped jersey and a vivid red cap nodding its tassel above his spectacled face, he probably looked more like a monkey than anything else.
It was just as this thought crossed his mind that his eye was caught by a reddish appearance of the mist half-a-cable's length away on the larboard beam. In another moment the red-brown side of a big vessel broke through the mist. A broad black line ran along her flank, and in it fourteen gun-ports yawned threateningly, with fourteen more ranged above them in the bulwarks of the upper deck. Two stern-chasers and two carronades--she could be none other than the 6o-gun Vengeur.
The French battleship sheered closer, her three great masts, carrying shortened sail, towering high above the brig. Septimus wished heartily that Charles Barry were with him, for Charles could speak fluent French. As it was, he could only hope that his bad accent would be taken for one of the various Provencal dialects, and confine himself to as few words as possible.
The expected hail floated clearly across the intervening space of water.
"What vessel's that? Answer immediately or I'll blow you out of the water!"
The French words were emphasised by a highly unpleasant oath. Evidently the captain of the Vengeur had no use for courtesy. Septimus cupped his hands to shout back. Behind him Beamish was waving cheerily to the figures clustered along the French vessel's rail, and from for'ard came O'Neill's high tenor voice singing his French drinking-song. It must be pretty convincing, after all. Septimus shouted with confidence.
"Brig Blanche, of Quelles. Captain Terray."
"Whither bound?"
"Marseilles, with-" Septimus, unable to remember the French for "vegetables", paused for a second. "Cabages," he ended.
There was a pause. Then came another hail, sounding more friendly. Its wording brought a sigh of relief from the midshipman, for it showed that his statements had been accepted.
"Have you seen a British frigate?"
"Non!" returned Septimus, shrugging and spreading his shoulders. "Rien du tout!"
It was as much as he could do to keep from cheering. Another few seconds, and the Vengeur would have disappeared into the mist and the Blanche could resume her journey to Toulon.
And then the tables were turned in a moment. He heard a crash of glass, a girl's voice screaming something in rapid French. It was Jeanne. He had forgotten all about her. She had broken the stern-cabin window and given the game away.
The voice from the Vengeur hailed again, this time excited and savagely threatening.
"Heave-to instantly!"
To add point to the command, a cannon thundered and its ball whizzed over the Blanche's bows. Midshipman Quinn looked at Seaman Tod Beamish.
"Bring her to, Mr. Beamish," he said softly.
"Aye aye, sir," muttered Beamish. And then "Hard luck, sir!"
Within ten minutes of that surrender, Mr. Quinn and his six men were standing on the quarterdeck of the Vengeur with a dozen muskets covering them and the thin sallow face of the French captain grinning triumphantly at them.