The uproar swelled suddenly, French oaths and yells rising above the din. For the Vengeur, her decks alive with flickering flames, was drifting slowly away from the frigate. Beamish and his men had severed the grappling-ropes.
After that it was easy to deal with the Frenchmen who had been left on board the Althea. Many of them lost their lives in trying to leap across the widening space between the two ships, others flung down their arms. Among those remaining on the deck of the British vessel was the French captain, the sallow-faced Gruvel, who fought on like a madman until a pair of grinning seamen (…)[4]
As for the doomed Vengeur, nothing could be done to save her. The frigate, severely damaged in the battle and holed below the waterline, was powerless to help. Slowly the great ship drifted away, the flames licking higher and higher about her masts and lower rigging. The victors watched her turn as some gallant soul on board strove to get her under control. Slowly the blazing ship heeled before the wind and began to move through the water. Then, with blinding suddenness, she seemed to dissolve in an immense fountain of fire. The flames had reached her powder-magazine.
In the lantern-lit stern cabin of the frigate Althea Captain Sainsbury sat at the head of the table. His thin face was rendered even grimmer than usual by reason of a long strip of sticking-plaster running from nose to ear. Some of the grimness was no doubt due to the fact that thirty seamen had been killed and three officers and forty-two men wounded in the sea-fight with the Vengeur, while his ship was so badly damaged that she would take another day to reach Lord Nelson's fleet off Toulon. The decks had been cleared and the jury mizzen-topmast rigged, but the ceaseless clanking of the pumps told of the serious damage to her hull.
His expression changed to something like satisfaction as he glanced round the dozen or so men who were his guests that night at dinner. There was some reason for that satisfaction. The Althea had completed her mission and had acquired most valuable information about the French coastal defences, and--more spectacular success--she had fought and sunk a 6o-gun French warship, a feat which was almost without parallel in naval history and which would make the Althea famous throughout the Navy. He felt almost sorry for his chief guest and prisoner, Captain Gruvel of the Vengeur, who sat sullenly at his right hand.
Captain Sainsbury very rarely smiled, but a smile of pleasure crept across his face as his glance fell upon the two officers who sat opposite him. One was his First Lieutenant, red-faced George Pyke. The other was a small midshipman with a grave face. Both had their right arms in slings.
Mr. Midshipman Quinn had not realised that a French swordthrust had bitten deeply into his forearm until the fight was over. He had not expected to be invited to dine in the captain's cabin, and thought it must be because he was better able to represent the midshipman's berth than either Charles Barry or Fitzroy Cocker, who had both been slightly wounded in the hand-to-hand fighting. He had been somewhat embarrassed when Lieutenant Pyke, as he entered the cabin, had extended his left hand and barked at him--"Hah! Saved my life, Mr. Quinn! Deucedly obliged, sir!"--and still more so when he listened to Captain Sainsbury's brief commendation of his conduct.
At the moment he was feeling uncomfortable, for the glittering eyes of the French captain, who was sitting opposite him, were fixed upon him angrily. Gruvel turned suddenly away from him to wave a finger under the nose of Captain Sainsbury.
"I tell you zis, man capitaine!" he vociferated in explosive English. "My ship, she would not 'ave been beaten only for zis-zis boy who sit 'ere!"
He took the finger away to jab it towards Septimus.
"That, Monsieur," responded Captain Sainsbury calmly, "is exactly what I have said in my report to Lord Nelson."
"And that being so, Captain Gruvel and gentlemen," barked Lieutenant Pyke unexpectedly, rising to his feet glass in hand, "I'll ask you all to rise and drink a toast. Hah! To Mr. Midshipman Quinn!
The toast was drunk with acclamation. As for Mr. Midshipman Quinn, he was scarlet in the face. So great was his confusion that he began to fumble in his pocket. Not until the chuckles broke out round the captain's table did he realise what he had done. He had put on his spectacles.