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Because of a succession of contrary winds the schooner Island Queen did not enter Portsmouth harbor for almost two weeks after the time she left the Delaware Capes. As they ran up under light sail, the skipper pointed to a sloop-of-war riding at anchor, and with a strange looking flag flying at her peak.

“That’s the ship you are looking for, I think,” he said.

“Yes; she seems like a new vessel,” said Ethan Carlyle, gazing earnestly at the craft. “See, they are only bending her after sails.”

“She’s a foreigner,” spoke the mate of the schooner who stood by. “Look at the flag she’s flying.”

“I hadn’t noticed that,” said the captain staring at the striped emblem with its cluster of white stars in a blue field. “It can’t be the Ranger, after all, for she wouldn’t be flying those colors.”

Ethan looked at the flag and laughed softly, as did Shamus, who was at his side.

“Faith, then, captain, dear,” said Longsword with a droll twinkle in his eye, “it’s a queer thing indeed if ye don’t know the flag of your own country.”

“Of my own country!”

“To be sure, for I take ye to be an American.”

“You are correct in that,” said the skipper proudly. “But I’ve never seen that flag before.”

“No wonder,” said Ethan, “for I very much doubt if it ever flew above a ship’s deck before. It is the new flag of the United States, recently adopted. I saw the first one not so long ago. Indeed, I had the honor of carrying it from the home of mistress Betsy Ross, who made it, to the State House; and I remember that the members of the Congress and General Washington, who was in the capitol at the time, admired it very much.”

“Well, the design is an improvement over the old rattle-snake and pine-tree flags,” admitted the captain, after careful inspection. “It looks well when it ripples in the breeze, doesn’t it?”

The schooner had drawn near the war ship, and the mate hailed her.

“Ahoy! is that the American ship, Ranger?”

“It is,” came the prompt reply from the deck of the other vessel.

“We are going to send a boat to you.”

“Heave ahead, my hearty.”

A skiff was lowered over the schooner’s stern, and Ethan and Longsword were rowed to the war ship’s side and clambered to the deck.

“Well, sir,” demanded a harsh looking man in the dress of a lieutenant.

“I desire to see Captain Jones, if he is aboard,” said Ethan, quietly.

“The captain is very busy just now. I am Lieutenant Simpson, and will attend to any business that you may have.”

There was a studied affront in the man’s manner that angered Ethan; but he replied, still quietly:

“My business is with the commander of this ship in person, if you please.”

“You will state your business to me, or you go over the side,” rapped out the harsh faced lieutenant.

“I will do neither one nor the other. I am here upon a special errand of much importance, and if Captain Jones is in the ship I demand to see him.”

The lieutenant burst into a tirade of abuse, which made Longsword stiffen and glare menacingly with his hand upon his hilt. But just then there came a light, brisk step upon the deck and a calm voice asked,

“Mr. Simpson, what is all this ado about?”

The first officer of the Ranger colored a trifle, and turning, said:

“This boy was impudent.”

“Ah! In what way?”

“He—he asked to see you.”

A low laugh of amusement greeted this statement.

“Well, I must say that I see no great impudence in that.” The speaker turned to Ethan, and continued: “Do you wish to speak to me?”

“Are you Captain John Paul Jones?” asked the lad.

“I am.”

Ethan stared in surprise. The fame of this new and brilliant sea chief was so great that he had, somehow, expected to see a huge and formidable man with fierce, weather-beaten features and the bearing of a buccaneer. But instead he found before him a rather small, slightly-built young man with a brisk air, a pair of the keenest dark eyes in the world, and a pleasant, resolute face.

“I beg your pardon,” stammered the lad, after he had recovered from his surprise and realized that he had been staring. He drew out a paper which the president of Congress had given him, and handed it to the young commander of the Ranger. The latter broke the seal, and as he unfolded the sheet of stiff paper Ethan had a glimpse of the beautifully regular handwriting of Mr. Hancock. A glance was sufficient to show John Paul Jones the purport of the missive. He glanced at Ethan in some surprise and then said:

“Will you kindly come down to my cabin?”

Ethan descended after him, and when once they were within the cabin and the door closed, the commander of the Ranger continued:

“I was expecting the packet which you bring, but hardly expected so youthful a messenger.”

Ethan smiled. John Paul Jones was a gentleman who possessed the knack of manner that causes strangers to feel at their ease; and the boy replied:

“And I hardly expected to find the captain of this ship so young a man.”

“Age on the sea,” said John Paul Jones, humorously, “comes with experience and not with years.” He regarded Ethan closely for a moment, and proceeded shrewdly, “And for all your youth, you are not a stranger to blue water, I take it.”

“I made my first voyage at five,” answered Ethan, “and witnessed my first sea fight through an empty port-hole. At ten I swarmed up to the royal yards of my father’s ship with a musket as tall as myself and helped to beat off an Algerian corsair just off the African coast.”

Captain Jones held out his hand, which the boy promptly clasped.

“Good,” said the former. “I like that; and now sit down and tell me all that Mr. Hancock and Mr. Jefferson had to say about this business.”

They seated themselves at the cabin table and Ethan proceeded to relate all that the president of Congress and the great Virginian had told him. And all the while he watched the mobile face before him, and an undercurrent of thought examined the history of the sailor as he had heard it from Mr. Jefferson some months before.

John Paul Jones was born on July 6th, in the year 1747, in a cottage on the estate of Arbigland, in the county of Kirkcudbright, Scotland; and his parents had been very poor and humble people indeed. It was a stern, wild place; to the rear was a lofty and rugged mountain, to the front was the wide Solway, where as a child he could by daylight see the white sails of the ships, and by night hear the solemn strokes of their deep-toned bells. He came to love the sea with a great love; he played at being sailor when he scarce could toddle, and his favorite toys were the little ships which an elder brother would make for him.

He went to sea at the age of twelve, and at twenty was a captain in the Scottish merchantman, John, sailing out of Whitehaven. Coming to America to settle the estate of a brother who died in Virginia he had remained, and upon the breaking out of the war between the colonies and England he had entered the infant navy as first lieutenant of the Alfred.

When Ethan had finished he drew out the packet of papers sealed with the big splotches of red wax, and John Paul Jones locked it carefully away in a heavy, oaken chest.

“Mr. Hancock was right,” said he to Ethan. “Everything depends upon an alliance with France. With the help that her heavy fleets would render us, the troops that she could send now and then, and above all the embarrassment that a war between her and England would cause the latter country, we could gain a peace with perfect freedom and honor.”

They talked for some time, and then the conversation drifted upon the subject of the Ranger.

“Yes,” said her captain, “she is a new ship. It was at first thought to have her carry twenty-six guns; but I saw at once that she was too slight in structure to carry so heavy a battery, so I have mounted but eighteen six-pounders. And when I get her into a French port I’m going to make some changes that I think the trip across the Atlantic will show to be necessary.”

Ethan and Shamus secured lodgings in the town until such time as the ship would sail. Much trouble was experienced in shipping a crew. The seamen demanded advance money, and the commander was forced to pay it to them out of his own private funds, as Congress sent him none for the purpose. And indeed this was no new thing for this brave and generous officer to do, as Ethan subsequently discovered. The government was already in his debt to the amount of seven thousand dollars; and he had once fitted the brig Providence for sea, paying every copper of the expense.

It was in the month of October that the Ranger, everything being ready, finally dropped down the bay and squared away for France. Ethan and Longsword were provided with sleeping quarters with the younger officer of the ship and took their meals in the gun room. Mr. Simpson and Mr. Hall the first and second officers, were grumbling, discontented men, and before John Paul Jones was done with them they gave him much trouble. The third officer, Mr. Wallingford, was a pleasant, good humored young man with a fund of bright stories and much ability as a sailor.

From the first, Simpson did all he could to annoy Ethan; he had undertaken to do the same for Longsword, but the first petty act of malice in this direction brought such a long, steady, menacing stare from that grim faced trooper that the thing was not repeated.

“Mr. Simpson seems not to like me,” said Ethan, on the second day out, to Mr. Wallingford.

“You are apparently a friend to Captain Jones,” said the third lieutenant. “And as a man with half an eye can see, he hates the captain like poison.”

“And why?”

“Just because he’s the skipper, I suppose,” said Wallingford, with a shrug. “Simpson is one of those men who hate all those who are placed over them. He got his rank by influence, and fancies that the command should have been given him.”

“I wouldn’t like to sail under him,” said Ethan.

“It is rather a good thing that you don’t belong to the ship,” agreed Wallingford. “He’d make life a burden for you, if you did.”

“And not belonging to the ship I have a right to resent insult even from the first lieutenant,” said Ethan Carlyle. “And if Mr. Simpson continues as he has he’ll find that I know how.”

Wallingford glanced over the lithe, supple, springy young fellow and realized that these words were no idle vaporings and that the power and will were behind them to make them good.

“Perhaps you may have a chance to show what you can do in the fighting way before we reach Nantes,” said the young third lieutenant. “I heard Simpson among the middies at eight bells last night trying to get one of them to thrash you.”

Ethan’s eyes flashed and his hands clinched.

“I trust he didn’t succeed,” said he. “For the midshipmen of the Ranger struck me as being a rather decent lot.”

“They are,” said Wallingford. “And none of them would accept his hints. But he didn’t stop there. There is a Canadian master’s mate on board, a hulking, savage sort of fellow. Simpson has been talking to him; so you’d better look out unless you want to complain to the skipper.”

“I’ll not do that,” answered Ethan determinedly. “I’ve always fought my own battles, and mean to continue to do so.”

“I think he—Simpson, I mean—judged you to be one of that kind, and he’s just mean enough to take advantage of it.”

Ethan told Shamus of this that same evening as they paced the deck together.

“The master’s mate, is it?” said the dragoon. “Well, I’ve noticed that same fellow to-day as he kicked and swore at the small lads and mild looking men in the crew. He’s a stout lump of a fellow wid a wicked look, so if there is to be ructions wid him, Master Ethan, leave him to me, and I’ll engage not to leave a whole bone in his body, so I will.”

Ethan laughed at his companion’s enthusiasm, but replied,

“I’d very much prefer it were Simpson himself, if it comes to a fight; but of course that is out of the question on board; it would not do for the first officer upon an American sloop-of-war to engage in a fracas with a passenger; Captain Jones would not permit it.”

As they were, shortly afterward, about to go below for the night, Shamus laid his hand upon Ethan’s arm.

“Master Ethan,” said he, “I’m going to tell ye something that will surprise ye.”

Ethan looked into the grim, scarred face of Longsword and was astonished to see that it was anxious and troubled looking.

“What is it?” he asked.

“In the second dog-watch I came on deck,” said the Irishman, “and the first person me two eyes fell upon as I took me foot from the top step of the ladder was—guess?”

“I can’t.”

“It was the brown man that listened at the window.”

“Impossible!”

“That’s what I should have said meself, jewel, if I hadn’t seen him as plain as day. And he had the crooked knife in his belt that I imagined him wid the other night on the Island Queen.”

“Are you quite positive it was the same man?”

“I’m as sure of it as I am that I am talking wid ye at this minute.”

“But what is he doing on the Ranger?”

“Sure he’s a sailor, so he is; the bos’en told me that he shipped on the day we sailed.”

Next day Ethan questioned Wallingford.

“A brown fellow, eh?” mused the ship’s third officer. “Let me see! Oh, yes, I remember. He’s a Lascar, I think, and gave the name of Siki. I signed him and the master’s mate whom I told you about yesterday. They seem to be great cronies. Always to be found in odd corners, whispering away like all possessed.”

Ethan waited until he saw the Lascar with his own eyes before he was satisfied. Then he went to Captain Jones, and told him all that he knew about the man.

“So you think that this fellow, Siki, as he calls himself, had something to do with the attack upon the schooner in Delaware Bay?” said the commander sternly.

“I feel sure of it, sir; though of course I did not see him.”

“And you think that he was after the packet given you by Mr. Hancock?”

“I think so—yes.”

“Then he also shipped with us in the hope of still getting his hands upon it, somehow. I’ll have Simpson clap the villain in irons.”

Ethan hastily laid his hand upon the captain’s arm.

“See,” said he, pointing to the after battery, where the tawny Lascar was busying himself rubbing down one of the six-pounders under the direction of the gunner’s mate, “there he is, now. And I hardly think he’s the prime mover in the matter.”

“No,” said John Paul Jones, “it does not seem likely. He is more apt to be a subtle, deft-handed instrument, used by a superior mind.”

“Would it not be wise,” suggested Ethan, “for you to hold your hand a bit longer; we might also be able to capture the master as well as the man.”

The commander patted him on the shoulder approvingly.

“Excellent,” said he, nodding his head. “That is just what we will do. The Lascar can be laid by the heels any time we choose to do it; it’s the mysterious fellow in the shadow that is the dangerous one. We will leave the trap open—and we will wait for him to show himself.”