Helena, during the whole
passage. Since that memorable day, the French have learned to be
silent on board ship, and the fruits remain to be seen.
That night, Marble and myself consulted together on the aspect of
things--or, as he expressed it, "we generalized over our prospects."
Monsieur Le Compte had done one thing which duty required of him. He
did not leave us a kernel of the gunpowder belonging to either ship;
nor could we find a boarding-pike, cutlass, or weapon of any sort,
except the officers' pistols. We had a canister of powder, and a
sufficiency of bullets for the last, which had been left as, out of an
_esprit de corps_, or the feeling of an officer, which told him
we might possibly need these means to keep our own crew in order. Such
was not the fact, however, with the particular people we happened to
have; a more orderly and reasonable set of men never sailing together.
But, Monsieur Le Compte knew it was his duty to put it out of their
power to trouble us, so far as it lay in his; but, at the same time,
while he left us the means of safety, he provided against our doing
any further injury to his own countrymen. In this he had pretty
effectually succeeded, so far as armament was concerned.
The next morning I was up with the appearance of the dawn, and, having
suffered much from the heat the preceding day, I walked to a suitable
spot, threw off my clothes, and plunged into the basin.
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