“And you had no battles then?”
“No battles, Polly; and yet, at the close of the cruise, we’re all but done for by a seventy-four gun frigate off Montauk. The captain twists us out of the frigate’s mouth by sheer seamanship.”
“Now how was that, Jack!” cries Polly, breathless and all ears.
“We comes poking ‘round the point, d’ye see, and runs blind into her. We beats to wind’ard; so does the frigate. And she lays as close to the wind as we—and closer, Polly. Just as she thinks she has only to reach out and snap us up, the captain—he has the wheel himself—wears suddenly round under easy helm, and gets the wind free. This sort o’ takes the frigate by surprise, and, instead of wearing, she starts to box about. She’s standing as close-hauled as her trim will bear at the time. So, as I says, as he wears ‘round, the frigate jams her helm down, and luffs into the teeth of the gale. There’s a squall cat’s-pawing to wind’ard that she ought to have seen, and would if she’d had our captain. But she never notices. So, d’ye see, my girl, the frigate don’t hold her luff, and next the squall takes her in the face. She loses her steering way, gets took aback; and we showing a clean pair of heels, with the wind free, on the sloop’s best point of sailing. And there you be: We leaves the frigate to clear her sheets and reeve preventers at her leisure—we snapping muskets at her from our taffer-rail, by way of insult, Polly!”
“Your captain’s too daring, Jack,” says Polly, who is a prudent woman.
“That’s what I tells him, Polly. ‘Cap’n,’ says I, ‘discretion is the better part of valor.’ At that he gives me a wink. ‘So it is, my mate,’ says he, ‘and damned impudence is the better part of discretion. And now,’ says he, ‘the frigate being all but hulldown astern, you may take this wheel yourself, while I goes down to supper.’”
When Lieutenant Paul Jones is again on dry land, he finds two pieces of news awaiting him. One is a letter from Mr. Jefferson, enclosing his commission as a captain fully fledged. The other is old Duncan Macbean in person, and his sunken cheek and leaden eye tell of troubles on the far-off Rappahannock.
“It was Lord Dunmore,” says old Duncan, very pale, his voice a-quaver. “He heard of you among the ships, and wanted revenge.”
“And the villain took it!”
“Ay, he took it like! He burned mansion, barn, flour-mill—every building’s gone, and never stick nor stone to stand one a-top t’ither on the whole plantation.”