One more fire from a cursed carronade would have given a Flemish account of the whole party; for, once get a little under, and you suffer like game in a _batteau_." Captain Cuffe wished to say _battue_; but, despising foreign languages, he generally made sad work with them whenever he did condescend to resort to their terms, however familiar.

"This Raoul Yvard is a devil incarnate himself at this boarding work, and is said to have taken off the head of a master's mate of the Theseus with one clip of his sword when he retook that ship's prize in the affair of last winter--that which happened off Alicant!" "I'll warrant you, sir, the master's mate was some slender-necked chap that might better have been at home, craning at the girls as they come out of a church-door.

I should like to see Raoul Yvard or any Frenchman who was ever born take off _my_ head at a single clip!" "Well, Winchester, to be frank with you, I should _not_.

You are a good first; and that is an office in which a man usually wants all the head he has; and I'm not at all certain you have any to spare.

I wonder if one could not hire a felucca, or something larger than a boat, in this place, by means of which we could play a trick upon this fellow, and effect our purpose quite as well as by going up to him in our open boats bull-dog fashion ?" "No question of it at all, sir; Griffin says there are a dozen feluccas in port here, all afraid to budge an inch in consequence of this chap's being in the offing.