"Never you mind," a voice said at his side, clear and chirpy as the note of a robin. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, you know. 'Tis not our fault. The shame is for them, not us. Cheer up, comrade."
The combined childishness and manliness of the voice made an odd impression upon Roy. He pulled himself up, and found one of the middies close by—a lad, perhaps two years his junior, with a rosy face. Roy stared at him in bewilderment.
"You'd better eat while you can. None too good fare, eh?" —with the same droll assumption of manliness. "As for these—" and he lifted his little brown manacled hands—"it only shows that we're Englishmen. Ain't you proud of that? I am!" Then a pause, and a return stare. "I say! My eyes!"
"I say!" echoed Roy. "Why, you're as like as two peas to—"
"You're Roy Baron, as I'm alive!"
"And I declare it's Will Peirce!"
The two tongues went fast. As little boys they had played together, romped together, worked mischief together; but for nearly five years the two had not met.
"We weren't beaten in fair fight—don't think it," asserted Will, with his chirrupy cheerfulness. "Got caught in a trap. Damaged in a gale off Finisterre; and when 'twas as much as we could do to keep afloat, two seventy-four gun frigates bore down on us. If she'd answered to her helm, we'd have had the best of it, spite of all. But though we made a hard fight, 'twas no go. They raked us fore and aft, and we got riddled through and through. So we had to give in. I say, you set to work and eat. We've got a long way to go."
Roy followed the counsel of experienced boyhood, and was the better for food. Will's familiar face brought comfort.
On again they marched, the middies and Roy handcuffed; the sailors chained two and two. The boys kept up a brave heart, no matter how weary and footsore they became. Roy held out as resolutely as any one.