Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/114

86 This was a trading ship, the Penguin, laden with wood. Surcouf captures her, places a few of his men on board, and starts her off for the islands. He then turns and follows as nearly as he can the coast towards the Bay of Bengal. He meets, however, no craft upon which he can seize; till, suddenly, at daybreak on the 19th January, he finds himself close to two English ships, towed by a pilot brig, at one of the mouths of the Ganges.

Surcouf attacked and took the three ships. Then, finding that the pilot brig was more adapted to his purposes than the Emilie, he removes to her his guns and his crew, calling her the Cartier, and sends off the Emilie in charge of his two prizes to the islands.

Still cruising off the mouths of the river, Surcouf discovered, on the evening of the 28th January, a large three-masted vessel going out to sea. He at once made for her and captured her. She proved to be the Diana, having on board a large cargo of rice. He then started with his prize for the islands.

But fortune was not always to befriend him. The very morning after the capture of the Diana he sighted a large English ship bearing up for the coast of Orissa. This was the Triton, an Indiaman carrying 26 guns and a crew of 150 men. Surcouf let the Diana approach him so as to increase his own crew, which, by the addition thus obtained, reached the number of nineteen men, himself and the surgeon included. He then set sail towards the Triton, of whose force he was naturally