The excited jabber which instantly arose among my new shipmates at once apprised me that I was aboard a vessel manned by Frenchmen.  A single quick glance aloft sufficed to inform me that she was barque-rigged, and probably of about three hundred and fifty tons measurement.  The excited and astonished watch crowded round me, regarding me curiously--and, methought, with looks not wholly devoid of suspicion.  They were, one and all, beginning to deluge me with questions, when an authoritative voice from the poop broke in with a demand to be informed what all the disturbance on the forecastle was about.  Whereupon an individual among the crowd who surrounded me, and who might have been, and indeed proved to be, the boatswain, took me by the arm, and bluntly suggested that I had better accompany him aft to Monsieur Leroy, the chief mate, and explain my uninvited presence aboard the barque.