“Where was Dr. Franklin, do you suppose?” asked Allan.
“Dining with some fair countess or duchess at Versailles,” replied Hodge, who leaned perhaps a little toward the Lee faction.
The secretary shrugged his shoulders and said nothing, but Conyngham spoke quickly.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “there is but one thing to do. Commission or no commission, I sail from Dunkirk on the early morning tide. We have but a few hours before us. May the Powers grant the messenger does not arrive before then. Stormont must have played his trump card and won.”
Quickly the party broke up and accompanied Conyngham to the water’s edge. Early in the morning, while still the mist hung over the harbor and shrouded the houses and shipping, a ghostlike vessel appeared in mid-channel, fanned by the damp shore breeze. It was the Revenge. On the fast ebb tide she slid swiftly out to sea.
The firm of Hortalez and Company received word from their Spanish agents and the representatives of Lazzonere and Company that four English vessels--two brigs, a large lugger, and a ship (the last a most valuable prize)--had arrived at Corunna, all sent in within a week after the sailing of the Revenge. So well had everything been arranged that there was a ready sale. Vessels and cargoes were disposed of without a hitch to Spanish and French merchants, in many cases auctions being held on the public wharves. Two weeks more and eight other prizes were added to the list.
England was now in a storm of indignant protest. The Admiralty was besieged with letters, and ship-owners and insurance people, frightened at the prospect of further losses, showed signs of panic. Vessels already loaded and ready for sailing were held in port until they could sail, under convoy of an armed guard-ship. Insurance rates rose twenty-five per cent. And all this time a little, fast-sailing craft drove up and down the Channel, occasionally flaunting the rattlesnake flag almost in sight of the fleets that lay at anchor in the roadways.
And so we find her on one bright day in August, still in sight of the white cliffs, but heading southwest in chase of a deep-laden vessel whose suspicions had been aroused, for she was staggering along under a press of snow-white canvas.