‘Not concerned! Not—’ he was too much overcome to go on, and could but look at me with a face full of reproach. ‘I thought better of you, Micah. Would you let this crazy old hulk go into action, and not stand by to fire a broadside?’
‘What would you have me do then?’
‘Why, I would have you help me as the occasion may arise. If I start to board her, I would have you work across the bows so as to rake her. Should I range, up on the larboard quarter, do you lie, on the starboard. If I get crippled, do you draw her fire until I refit. What, man, you would not desert me!’
The old seaman’s tropes and maritime conceits were not always intelligible to me, but it was clear that he had set his heart upon my accompanying him, which I was equally determined not to do. At last by much reasoning I made him understand that my presence would be more hindrance than help, and would probably be fatal to his chances of success.
‘Well, well,’ he grumbled at last, ‘I’ve been concerned in no such expedition before. An’ it be the custom for single ships to engage, I’ll stand to it alone. You shall come with me as consort, though, and stand to and fro in the offing, or sink me if I stir a step.’
My mind was full of my father’s plans and of the courses which lay before me. There seemed to be no choice, however, as old Solomon was in dead earnest, but to lay the matter aside for the moment and see the upshot of this adventure.
‘Mind, Solomon,’ said I, ‘I don’t cross the threshold.’
‘Aye, aye, mate. You can please yourself. We have to beat up against the wind all the way. She’s on the look-out, for I hailed her yesternight, and let her know as how I should bear down on her about seven bells of the morning watch.’
I was thinking as we trudged down the road that Phoebe would need to be learned in sea terms to make out the old man’s meaning, when he pulled up short and clapped his hands to his pockets.
‘Zounds!’ he cried, ‘I have forgot to bring a pistol.’