The frigate bore away a point and began forging ahead. At the last moment the man Orsini took to be the captain shouted a course to him. 'You are steering a full point too much to the south!'

'Thank you', Orsini bawled back, 'I will bring the convoy round. Thank you; meeting you was our lucky day!'

An hour later the French frigate's hull had disappeared over the horizon ahead of them. In the Matilda, Rennick felt curiously cheated but nevertheless relieved; he was unsure what Orsini had done, but it had worked.

In the Caroline, Rossi said: 'You know, sir, if we had got the plague on board, it wouldn't matter whether we was French, Spanish, Dutch or anything: in Málaga or anywhere else they wouldn't allow anyone on shore or on board; we'd have to stay at anchor, or at a quarantine buoy, until everyone with the plague had died and then another three or four weeks had passed.'

'I know', said Paolo. 'Still, the two words, la peste, were the only things that could have saved us from that frigate. By the time she has Málaga prepared for our reception, we should be in Gibraltar.'

'Deck there - foremast lookout here!'

'Deck here.'

'Sir, there's another frigate coming up fast on the same course as that last bahstid.'

Paolo felt almost sick. The last trick had been too easy and it was unlikely he could play the same ace twice in one game.

'Get aloft with the glass, Baxter', he said, not trusting his own knees to get him up the ratlines. 'Make the signal to Mr Aitken for a strange sail, and the bearing', he told Rossi.

Two minutes later Baxter hailed.

'Deck there!'

'Hurry and report!'

'It's a French frigate, sir!'

'I guessed that!'

'She's steering for us, every stitch of canvas set, and another sail just astern of her!'

Two frigates. Paolo shrugged his shoulders; there was a limit to what one's brain could accept. He turned to Rossi.

'As soon as Mr Aitken acknowledges, hoist "Two strange sail".'

'Mr Aitken has already acknowledged the first signal, sir.'

'Mama mia! Then make the second', Paolo said impatiently, but Rossi did not move. Instead he was looking up at Baxter.

'Deck there!' the man hailed.

'Deck here', Orsini answered wearily.

'The first sail is a frigate, sir, and the second is a tartane.'

'Very well', Orsini said and as he turned to Rossi he said: 'Give me the signal book - I don't think the French have a signal for "tartane".' As Rossi handed him the handwritten sheets which had been sewn together to make a book, Orsini knew his hands were shaking, but he was surprised that Rossi should be grinning at the fact.

As he began to look through the signals Rossi murmured in Italian: 'Sir - a frigate and a tartane ... you remember!'

The Calypso and the Passe Partout!Accidente! Paolo glanced round at the other ships and then began giving helm orders: Captain Ramage would expect the convoy to be in regular order by the time the frigate and tartane caught up.