She was sharp-voiced, alert, and keen. Dr. Ulswater seemed bewildered.
“Yes, but I gather he's a sort of patriotic pirate,—piratical so far that it might not do to irritate him.”
Mrs. Mink softened a degree: “Is he patriotic?”
“My experience in this neighbourhood,” said the doctor, “has been that patriotic leaders, who are down on the tyrant, are generally looking for his job. But now, as they appear to be some two or three to one of us, and armed, and, technically speaking, to have the drop on us,—why, there's a West-Indian proverb to the effect that 'A spider and a fly don't bargain,' but I would suggest something diplomatic, something perhaps a little yielding. Something of that kind.”
The Commodore all this while sat stiffly upright, with one hand on the hilt of his tasselled sword and no expression on his face, glaring away from us across the sea. It seemed to me that his bearing couldn't be natural to a being with human weaknesses, and that it went beyond the real requirements of his uniform. I judged he had gotten it off an equestrian statue.
Dr. Ulswater began to talk with him again. Of the military, on the edge of the flowered carpet, some looked genial, some murderous—most of them genially murderous. Captain Jansen pulled his beard and looked meekly at Mrs. Mink, and Mrs. Mink examined the Commodore critically.
“He says,” resumed Dr. Ulswater, “that it's a military crisis, and he must have another war-ship or go under. When he has conquered the ships of the tyrant, he will reward us. His remarks, like his manner, are a bit monotonous, but I gather he's nearly, what you might call, on his last legs. He rather intends to put us all ashore.”
“Fiddlesticks!”
“A—certainly! You think———”
“Fiddlesticks!”