But he dogged us all the rest of that day and did his best to cripple us, until a fortunate shot from a carronade, which Master Nicolle ran out astern, nipped his foremast and set us free.

I got a cut from a cutlass in the left arm, but it healed readily, and Captain Nicolle was pleased to compliment me on my behaviour.

But, to tell the truth, I was so angry at the Frenchman's insolent interference with us, that I thought of nothing at the time but taking it out of him with hearty thrust and blow whenever chance offered.
On our third voyage the _Hirondelle_ went ashore in a gale off Cape Hatteras, and Captain Nicolle and half our crew were drowned.

The rest of us scrambled ashore _sans_ everything, but were well treated, and as soon as we could travel were forwarded to New York, and in time found a ship to take us to London.
So that, on the whole, I had seen a fair amount of life and death and the larger world outside, and felt my years almost doubled from what they were when I used to lie on Tintageu and watch the white-sailed ships pressing out to the great beyond.
But the things that stand out now most clearly in my memory are the homecomings and the partings and all they meant to me, but more especially the homecomings--the eager looking forward from the moment our bows pointed homewards; the joy of seeing my mother and grandfather and dear old Krok and George Hamon--Uncle George by adoption, failing that closer relationship which Providence had denied him--sympathetic listener to all our childish troubles and kindly rescuer from endless scrapes; the biting intensity of longing to meet Carette again, and to find out how things were with her and how things were between us, a longing that taught me the meaning of heartache.
For this was how matters stood between us--at least as I saw them.

Each time I came home I managed, in one way or another, to get a sight, at all events, of Carette, though in some cases little more.