"You're wrong there," said another buccaneer. "I was a Parliament soldier afore Gloucester, and if you'd seen him and them damned swearing cavaliers ride through six regiments of saints, you'd ha' held your tongue upon that, friend Simpson. No; he's a glutton for a fight."
"But I was going on to say, brethren," said Zebedee, "that this sea adventuring is none to my taste. I say nothing about frying for days in an open boat, eating your boots and your belt, and going half mad for want of a drop of water; I say nothing about finding a don's ship at last, and boarding her in spite of their teeth, and then putting on fine clothes and making the beggars sail her for you into Jamaica or Tortuga with colours flying and every piece being fired off in salute. But what do we get out of it? A week's carouse, and then come back here to the hunting with a shaking hand and an eye that's clogged, and starve for half a year till the work's pulled you straight again. No, brethren; for a pleasant life, give me steady hunting, and steady pegging away at the Spaniards between whiles by way of diversion. I've tried both, turn and turn about, these dozen years, and I know which is best."
"Zebedee's growing old," cried a younger man. "I'm rusting for a turn on the seas myself. This hunting's well enough, but what's a package of greasy skins against the gutting of a fat galleon's paunch? They both take the same time to get, and think of the difference after. Last time I was over in Tortuga with three months' hard earnings, I'd empty pockets in a day."
"I'm for a venture on sea," said another. And twenty more voices said the same.
"There's sense in it," said Simpson. "I'm thinkin' I could do with a turn mysen if so be we'd a captain that——"
A man came tearing into the camp, half burst with running. "There's a pink," he gasped—"a Jack Spaniard, sailing close in along the coast. She's becalmed, and the current's been settin' her in. Her people are nigh frighted to death. I could see them with my eyes, standing to their guns."
Rupert started to his feet. "Now, sirs," he said, "a fisherman's boat with twenty volunteers, and she is ours."
The younger men amongst the buccaneers were getting ready their weapons, aglow with the thoughts of action.
"There's a canoe down by t' creek," said Simpson, "but there's nobbut one, an' she's half rotten."
"Then we must be the quicker about our business, so that she does not sink under us," said Rupert lightly.