Her great yellow bowsprit and white-winged figure-head were jutting out from the cluster of palm trees, while high above them towered three immense masts with the tricolour flag floating superbly from the mizzen.

Round she came, the deep-blue water creaming under her fore foot, until her long, curving, black side, her line of shining copper beneath and of snow-white hammocks above, and the thick clusters of men who peered over her bulwarks were all in full view.

Her lower yards were slung, her ports triced up, and her guns run out all ready for action.
Lying behind one of the promontories of the island, the lookout men of the _Gloire_ upon the shore had seen the _cul de sac_ into which the British frigate was headed, so that Captain de Milon had served the _Leda_ as Captain Johnson had the _Slapping Sal_.
But the splendid discipline of the British service was at its best in such a crisis.

The boats flew back; their crews clustered aboard; they were swung up at the davits and the fall-ropes made fast.

Hammocks were brought up and stowed, bulkheads sent down, ports and magazines opened, the fires put out in the galley, and the drums beat to quarters.
Swarms of men set the head-sails and brought the frigate round, while the gun-crews threw off their jackets and shirts, tightened their belts, and ran out their eighteen-pounders, peering through the open portholes at the stately French man.