There was a confused shouting from the gundelos on the eastern side of the crescent. One of the tall black schooners that had pursued us had hove in sight at the far end of the channel. She let off three guns in quick succession at the Royal Savage, who had a sluggish look, as though a current held her near the Valcour shore.

Arnold, watching her through our fringe of hemlock, shook his head. “Look at her! Where in God’s name did Hawley learn to judge distances?”

“She ought to make it on the next tack,” I said.

“I hope so,” he said sourly. “All my papers are aboard her: all my accounts. My clothes, too.” As an afterthought he added, “She’d better make it unless she wants an eighteen-pound ball in her tail!”

He beckoned to Cap Huff, who, now that the guns had been traversed, stood at the break in the deck, restlessly waiting permission to draw the promised rum. “One gill to each,” Arnold told him, “and mind you don’t help yourself too freely.”

The Royal Savage came up into the wind. I tried to find Nathaniel on the quarterdeck, but couldn’t. The vessel made me nervous, hanging there. Her sails shivered. I heard myself shouting, “Put your helm over! Over! Drop your anchor!”

“She missed stays,” Arnold said. “She’s gone.”

I pulled hard with my stomach muscles, trying to help her around somehow.

Her sails filled. She fell off and moved slowly to the eastward, close to the island. Then she stopped. Far away as we were, I could see her masts bend. She stood there, motionless: then canted over on her starboard side.

“She struck!” I said foolishly. “She’s ashore!”

“That’s right,” Arnold agreed. In a thoughtful voice he added, “This is a hell of a time to lose one of your best vessels.”

I muttered that it was the wind, and racked my brain for something I could do to help Nathaniel.

“Wind be damned!” Arnold said coldly. “It was rotten bad seamanship!”

Into our line of vision came one of the small British gunboats, her gun high on her bow like a duck’s head. She bored up into the channel with the help of a lug sail and four long oars. Another slid from behind the shoulder of the island, beyond the stranded Royal Savage: then three in a clump: then another and another.

A boat put out from the stranded vessel, an anchor balanced across its bows; so Hawley was sending an anchor astern, in the hope of warping her off. Nathaniel, I was sure, would be in command of the boat.

The black schooner let off a gun. The shot landed close to the boat’s bows, sending a spout of water as high as the Royal Savage’s main truck.

The boat capsized and the anchor disappeared. We could see men swimming back to the Royal Savage.