"If you please, sir; we are not very strong-handed now, and if I had to put men on board another prize I should be quite crippled--even now I can hardly work all my guns."
The captain smiled. "That is to say that you would like ten more men, Mr. Vignerolles?"
"I should indeed, sir, if you would be kind enough to give them to me."
"Well, as you have brought us in a prize worth, I should say at least, twenty thousand pounds, I think that I must let you have them. How about your prisoners?"
"They are shut up in the fo'castle, sir; we have a heavy coil of rope against the door. Mr. Harding tells me that they have tried to break out twice, and that he has had to threaten to fire upon them."
The master and mate with fifteen men were at once sent on board the prize. Harding with his crew returned to the schooner, and ten more men from the frigate were sent on board her. Then the _Alert_ dipped her ensign and laid her course west; while the frigate, escorting the prize, headed south-west, as the captain intended to see her well past the French coast before he left her; for although no French men-of-war had, so far as he had learned, put out from Toulon, it was certain that French privateers would very soon be fitted out to prey upon British commerce. The breeze had sprung up again, and the schooner, slipping fast through the water, soon drew away from the others. A large ship was seen coming out from Toulon, but the _Alert_, sailing much faster, soon lost sight of her. Four days later, returning from the westward, the _Alert_, rounding a headland, came in sight of the château. Peter uttered an exclamation as his eye fell upon her, and he caught up the glass.
"Good Heavens, Harding, the château is on fire, there is smoke pouring out of two of the lower windows, and--Yes, I can make out a white sheet or something outside the window where the signal was to be shown. I am afraid the château is in the hands of those ruffians of Marseilles. No doubt, directly they were seen coming the girls hung it out, though they would know that we should not be along here until eleven o'clock. Probably the place was taken some hours ago. You may be sure that the scoundrels would not set it on fire until they had sacked it from top to bottom. The only chance is that they may be hiding somewhere near the shore."