At daylight, nothing was to be seen from the mast-head; and we cheerfully pursued our voyage, rejoicing in our fortunate escape. We had now time to think of and to lament the hard fate of our shipmates, who had been so cleverly entrapped.
"Sandford's luck, again," said I. "Poor fellow, how strange it is that such a fatality always seems to attend him!"
"You forget," said Captain Driver, "that the men who are with him are in the same unlucky predicament, and of course are equally unfortunate. But it _is_ curious to observe how some men are favoured and others persecuted by fortune. When I was a youngster, I sailed with a captain (a smart, active, intelligent man he was) who told me that ever since he had commanded a ship, each alternate voyage had always been an unlucky one. 'And this,' said he, 'is my unlucky one.' And sure enough it was so; for, from the commencement to the close of it, it was one constant series of misfortunes. However, I have no doubt our poor lads will be well enough off on board the privateer--the French are fine fellows, after all; but I do not envy them the quarters that await them on shore."
The breeze continued steady; and in about ten days' time we had run down a great part of our distance from the Lizard, which we expected to _make_ in two days more. One morning the man at the mast-head reported a large ship to the southward, and Captain Driver _made her out_ to be a man-of-war. We immediately crowded all sail, with the horrors of a French prison before us; but she had already noticed us, and come bowling after us, firing a gun to bring us to, and hoisting English colours. After a long and anxious survey of the stranger, Captain Driver was satisfied that she was an English frigate, and accordingly hoisted his colours and hove to. From the lieutenant who boarded us, we learned that the frigate was H.M.S. ----, bound to Spithead. When we related to him our adventure with the privateer, he told us that it was no wonder we were deceived; for that the Hercule was often mistaken for the Hawk, and that the real Hawk was cruising about the _chops_ of the Channel, in hopes of falling in with her. We followed in the wake of the frigate up Channel, and, on the 1st May, to our great joy, we cast anchor once more on the shores of Old England. I remained two years at home, and then returned to the East, without having heard any news of poor Sandford's fate.