Part 30

"She's filled with gold nuggets, her crew is asleep, Then board her, and take her, for dead men are cheap, We'll spike them and pike them, like so many sheep. With a Heave! Ho! Blow the man down."

It was not long before a sail was sighted, and, on the 12th day of January, 1695, the stout, little Francois overhauled a solitary timber ship, loaded with huge trees, bound to England from the good town of Boston in New England. She was an easy capture, and, Du Guay-Trouin smiled with joy when her skipper said:

"Three other lumber ships are in the offing. But they are under convoy of the frigate Nonsuch with forty-eight guns, and the Falcon with thirty-eight cannon. Look out my bold sea-dog, there'll be trouble."

But the French mariner laughed.

"It's just what I'm searching for," said he, and forthwith he swung the stout Francois in wide circles, with look-outs at every mast-head.

"Sail ho!" shouted the watch, next morn, and there, off the port bow, were the three merchantmen strung out in a line, with the two protecting gun-boats to windward.

Like a greyhound the Francois swept down upon them, and with the audacity of despair, the privateersman of St. Malo ranged alongside of the Falcon and opened fire. The engagement was short. In an hour's time the guns of the Englishman were silent and a white pennon fluttered from the mizzen-mast.

The Nonsuch, meanwhile, had been ranging to windward in a vain endeavor to bring her guns to bear upon the Frenchman without crippling her own mate, and--as the Francois drifted away from the lurching Falcon--she bore down to within twenty yards, luffed, and spanked a rakish broadside into the privateer.

"Board her!" shouted Du Guay-Trouin. "Board her!" and, bringing the wheel close around, he swung the bow of the Francois into the side of the Englishman. But, as the sailors scampered to the bulwarks with cutlass and with dirk, a sheet of flame burst from the port-holes of the drifting Nonsuch. She was afire.

"Luff! Luff!" cried the keen-eyed French mariner, and the Francois drew away as the red flames curled upward with a cruel hiss.

With a swift turn the helm again spun over, under the quick hand of Du Guay-Trouin, and the Francois was jibed about in order to run under the port bow of the Englishman.

"Hold, Captain!" cried a French Lieutenant. "We, ourselves, are afire!"

As he spoke--a direful cloud of vapor rolled from the starboard quarter.

"Alack!" answered the now furious Rénee. "This puts an end to the fighting of this day, and we'd soon have had the second Britisher. All hands below and bucket out this fire!"

So, as night fell upon the rolling ocean, the Falcon lay drifting helplessly, while the Nonsuch and the Francois were burning like two beacons upon a jutting headland.

As day broke, the Francois filled away (for the fire had been extinguished after an hour's toil) and ranged within striking distance of the Nonsuch. A broadside belched from her starboard guns and an answering roar came back from the cannon of the Englishman. The fore and main masts of the Nonsuch trembled for a moment--then tottered and fell--while the gallant Captain, struck in the chest by a flying piece of shell, fell dying upon the deck. Du Guay-Trouin again attempted to board, at this moment, but the third mast was shaking and he was forced to sheer off lest the tangle of yards and rigging should fall and crush his vessel. He hung within hailing distance of the crippled sea-warrior, and, seeing that his antagonist was now helpless, cried out through his trumpet:

"Run up the white flag, or I'll give you a broadside that will sink you."

No answering hail came from the deck of the battered Nonsuch, but the piece of a torn, white shirt was soon fluttering from the tangled rigging of the foremast. Thus the gallant Rénee had defeated two warships of equal strength, and had captured vessels with a rich and valuable cargo. Now, don't you think that this fellow was a doughty sea rover? And, although the English made many excuses, the fact still remains that a single privateer had conquered double her own force in a fair and open fight upon the high seas.

The sturdy Francois could just barely drift into St. Malo--so badly crippled was she--but the rest came safely to port, in spite of a hard gale which blew down the masts of two of the lumber boats. And doughty Rénee refitted the Nonsuch, transferred his flag to her, called her the Sans-Pareil, and flung his flag defiantly from her mast-head in spite of the fact that she was "made in England." All France was agog over his exploit.

Now, know you, that doughty Rénee was a "Blue;" a "Blue" being a man of the people (the bourgeoisie) who were not of aristocratic birth. And, as the French Royal Marine was the most exclusive body of officers in the world, birth and station being necessary for admittance therein, the titled office-holders threw up their hands when Du Guay-Trouin's name was mentioned for a place of command, saying,--

"Why, he's only a beastly Democrat. Pooh! Bah! We do not care to have such a fellow among us." And they shrugged their shoulders.

The officers of the French Royal Marine wore red breeches, and, if by chance a democrat were given a commission, he had to appear in blue small-clothes throughout his entire career. Very few of the "Blues" ever came to be an Admiral, for the odds were too great against them.

But Rénee had done so bravely and well that a sword was sent him by the King, who wrote,--

"Should you wish a commission in the Royal Navy, good sir, it shall be yours."

And to this, Du Guay-Trouin replied,--

"I feel that I can do better where I am, Most Gracious Majesty. I will remain a Privateer." For Du Guay-Trouin wished to accumulate riches, as his forebears had done.

So, cruising down the coast of Ireland, he fell in with three East Indiamen, whom he captured with ease, and, piloting them to St. Malo, declared a dividend of two thousand pounds ($10,000) a share, to the stockholders in his staunch vessel. And the value of the shares was but one hundred pounds ($500) each. Would not the men of Wall Street love such a fellow in these piping times of peace?

A month later we find him cruising in the Bay of Biscay, where--in the dead of night--he ran into a great English fleet, roving about for just such vessels as the Sans-Pareil and eager for a broadside at the French privateer. But young Rénee--for he was now twenty-three--had not lost his nerve. "There was no time," he wrote, "for hesitation. I had two valuable prizes with me and ordered them to hoist Dutch colors and to run away to leeward, saluting me with seven guns each as they went.