crossed new topgallantyards, had repaired her boom and fished her wounded foremast; and she sent in a boat to demand the surrender of the corvette.
'I hope to God Webber has found the Sirius,' said Clonfert, gazing eagerly out to sea. But the day passed, and no sail showed beyond the cape. The night passed too, with boats rowing guard: before sunrise the perilous landbreeze began to blow--perilous because it might bring the powerful ships and a swarm of boats across the lagoon in the darkness, but the French never stirred, and at dawn the reviving south- easter kept them where they lay. So two days went by, with no incident apart from the French commodore's refusal to give up the Victor. The soldiers drilled and polished their equipment; the artillerymen exercised their pieces; the master-gunner filled cartridge and checked his stores. Clonfert remained as cheerful and active as ever, and his spirits reached a new height on the third day, when the French ships were seen to move down to the far end of the harbour, right down among the shoals and under the batteries of Port South-East, mooring in a curved line that stretched from one end of the sunken reef that guarded the port's entrance to the other; for this, said he, must mean that Webber had found the Sirius. At least some of the blockading force must have disappeared from off Port-Louis, and Governor Decaen, fearing an attack upon the Minerve and Bellone, had surely sent the news overland to Port South-East. Clonfert was right. Some hours later the Sirius herself rounded the cape under a great press of sail.
'Look sharp with the signal,' said Clonfert, when they had exchanged numbers. The prepared hoist broke out, and he laughed aloud.
'What does it signify?' asked Stephen.
'Ready for action and Enemy of inferior force,' replied Clonfert with a slightly conscious look; and immediately afterwards, 'Look alive with the book, Briggs. What is she saying?'
The signal-yeoman muttered the answer, and the midshipman spoke up: 'Send Nereide's master aboard, my lord.'
'Gig's crew,' cried Clonfert. 'Mr Satterly, bring her in as quick as ever you can.'
In she came, and her last signal before she entered the channel told the Nereide to get under way. The Sirius passed the fort almost as fast as the Bellone, and still under her topsails and courses swept by the Ngriide, Pym leaning over the rail and hailing Clonfert to follow him. Down the long winding channel they went, more cautiously now, but the Sirius still with her topsails set, for there was not much daylight left. In the Nereide her black pilot was at the con; he had her under staysails, no more, and he was muttering to himself, for after the Horseshoe bank their course would lead them into a region of the inner harbour that they did not know well--a region that they had avoided, it being swept by the guns of Port South-East.
Past the Noddy shoal, with the lead going fast: past the Three Brothers, and a four-point turn to larboard. The leadsman's calls came sharp, quick and clear: 'By the mark ten; and a half ten; by the deep eleven; by the deep eleven; by the mark fifteen.' A good depth of water, a clear channel one would have sworn: yet at the last call the Sirius, only just ahead, struck hard on the tail of a bank and ran far up on to the submerged coral.
Yet if she had to go aground at least she had chosen a good place for doing so. The shore- batteries could not reach her, and the wind, blowing right on to the land, pinned the French frigates to their moorings. The Sirius and the Nereide carried out their warps undisturbed as the sun set over Mauritius, and they settled down to heaving her off in a seamanlike manner. But she would not come off at the first heave, nor in the first hour of heaving, during which the tide began to ebb: however, tomorrow's flood would be higher and there were great hopes of floating her at about eight in the morning; and in the meantime there was nothing to be done except to ensure that no French boat-attack could succeed.
'What have you to say to our patient's present state of exaltation?' said Stephen to McAdam. 'In these circumstances, does it pass the limits of reasonable conduct? Do you find it morbid?'
'I am at a loss,' said McAdam. 'I have never seen him like this, at all. He may know what he is about, but he may be bent on wiping your friend's eye, and damn the whole world, so he does it. Have you ever seen a man look so beautiful?'
Dawn, and still the French had not moved. For once no holy-stone was heard aboard the Sirius or the Nirjide; no swabs beat the decks, littered as they were with cables, hawsers, heavy tackles, all the resources of the bosun's art. The tide rose, the capstans turned, slower and slower as the full strain came on and as all hands who could find a place at the bars heaved her grinding off into deep water, where she anchored by the Nereide and all the carpenters crowded about her bows, cut deep by the sharp and lagged coral. The exhausted hands were piped to their late breakfast, and they were beginning to set the still-encumbered deck into some kind of fighting-trim when the Iphigenia and Magicienne were seen in the offing.
Clonfert sent his master to bring them in, for Mr Satterly, though harassed and ashamed, now certainly knew the channel up to this point very well; but he had grown so cautious that it was not until after dinner that they dropped anchor and all captains gathered aboard the Sirius to hear Pym's plan of attack. It was clear: it made good plain sense. Nereide, with her black pilot, was to lead in and anchor between the Victor and the Bellone at the northern end of the French line; Sirius with her eighteen- pounders was to anchor abreast of the Bellone; Magicienne between the Ceylon and the powerful Minerve; and Iphigenia, who also carried eighteen-pounders, abreast of the Minerve, closing the line on the south.
The captains turned to their ships. Clonfert, who did in fact look extraordinarily gay, young, and lighthearted, as though possessed by some happy spirit, went below to put on a new coat and fresh white breeches; coming on deck again he said to Stephen, with a particularly sweet and affectionate smile, 'Dr Maturin, I believe we may show you something to be compared to what you have seen with Commodore Aubrey.'
The Sirius made her signal, and the Nereide, slipping her cable, led in under staysails, her pilot conning the ship from the foretopmast yard. The Sirius followed her, then the Magicienne, then the Iphigenia, each falling into line at intervals of a cable's length. On through the winding channel with the steady breeze, the shore coming closer and closer: with successive turns in the channel the intervals grew wider, and the Sirius, hurrying to close the gap and misjudging her swing, struck hard and grounded on the rocky edge. At the same moment the French frigates and the shore-batteries opened fire.
Pym hailed his ships to carry on. In five minutes the Nirjide was out of the narrow pass. The Magicienne and the Iphigenia, judging the channel by the stranded Sirius, pressed on after her but now at a somewhat greater distance; and in the last wind, four hundred yards from the French line, the Magicienne took the ground. By now the French broadsides were sweeping high over the Nereide's deck from stem to stern to disable her as she ran down, making for the Victors bow. 'Warm work, Dr Maturin,' said Clonfert, and then, glancing over the taffrail, 'Sirius has not backed off; she is hard and fast,' he said. 'We must tackle the Bellone for her. Mr Satterly, lay me alongside the Bellone. Lay me alongside the Bellone,' he said louder, to be heard above the din; for now the bow guns were answering the French. 'Aye, aye, sir,' said the master. For another cable's length she held on, straight through the French fire: another fifty yards, and the master, waving his hand to the watchful bosun, ordered the helm put up.
The Ngriide swung round, dropped her anchor, and lay there broadside to broadside, abeam of the big Frenchman, and her twelve-pounders roared out at point-blank range. She was firing fast: the Marines and
