"Our marines saved the castle the first day, Colonel Douglas landing and taking command and restoring order, for the Turks were fighting fiercely among themselves when we got in, and during the night he managed to send off about a thousand of them to their ships. The whole business was brought about owing to Mustapha Pasha not acting in accordance with the advice that Sir Sidney had sent him to act against either Damietta or Rosetta, as our ships would station themselves in the Bay of Aboukir, and so threaten Alexandria that the French would not care to weaken their force there by sending any considerable number of men to act against the Turks. There, that is all that has happened. Now let us hear your yarn."
Wilkinson gave a brief account of the trip of the _Tigress_.
"You see," he said, "we have not done much fighting; indeed, with the exception of the first scrimmage at Astropalaia we can scarcely have said to have had anything worth calling fighting at all. We picked up a lot of small piratical craft, destroyed the majority of them, and sold the others at Smyrna or Rhodes. We got altogether twelve thousand five hundred for them, and as, of course, that will be shared by the _Tigre_, we have done pretty well our share in the way of earning prize-money for the ship. More, indeed, for the _Tigre's_ share of the prizes that you have taken here won't come to more than fifteen or twenty thousand at the outside. Besides that, we have got some booty on board the _Tigress_, but what it is worth I have no idea, for we simply bundled the things down below without opening anything. Still, no doubt it will be enough to give you a few pounds a head."
As soon as he could get away Wilkinson returned to the brig. That evening, at the admiral's table, he gave a much more detailed account of their doings than he had done in his reports. When he had finished, Sir Sidney Smith said:
"That attack upon the pirates' hold was extremely well managed, Mr. Wilkinson, and does you and Mr. Blagrove great credit. You were very brief in your account of it, and only said that a considerable amount of booty, which had evidently been taken from plundered ships, was found concealed, and that the more valuable portion was shipped on the _Tigress_. I will come on board in the morning, and you can have a few of those bales brought up on to the main deck, and we can see what is in them."