So out it all came. "He's a man of wrath," said Captain Jacka, "and he'll be sorry for it when he comes to die."
"There's one or two," said Mr. Rogers, "would like to hurry that reckoning a bit. Well, well, I can make shift to fit you up with something for a week or two, and maybe by that time there'll be an opening aboard one of the Packets. Just now, in Christmas week, business is slack enough, but what do you say to going mate on a vessel as far as the Downs?"
"Nothing I should like better," says Jacka.
"You'd better have a look at her first," says Mr. Rogers.
So he takes Jacka off to the Market Strand, calls for a waterman's wherry, and inside of ten minutes they were being pulled out to the Roads.
"There's your ship," says Mr. Rogers, as they pushed out beyond the old dock into Carrick Roads.
Jacka opened first his eyes and then his mouth. The vessel was a kind of top-sail schooner, but with a hull there was no mistaking, the more by token that the tide was swinging her stern-on, and showing him a pair of windows picked out in red paint, with shutter-boards and brass hinges shining.
"Mr. Rogers," he said, "I han't read the Sherborne Mercury lately, but is—is the war over?"
"No, nor likely to be."
"But, Mr. Rogers, sir, either that there ship is a Dutchman or else I be."