Upon which Wick and the other buccaneers took their courage with both hands, and began to look out also; whereupon it appeared that the mermaid had sunk or swum away.
The crews went back to the rum casks little the worse for the experience, but it was plain that Wick was shaken. "It's a warning," said Wick, "and some of us here will have to pay. A mermaid does not come for nothing."
"I am ready to take my risks," said Rupert lightly. "Indeed, if the lady pays us a second visit, I shall hope to see her features more accurately. To tell the truth, Captain, I came out here with some curiosity about your mermaids, and water-monks, and other monstrosities of these seas, and it's beginning to die away."
"What," said Wick, "your lordship's seen some of them and they were not so terrific as you looked for?"
"Why, no," said Rupert, "the fact is I've seen none of them."
Captain Wick dipped up another horn of rum and nodded his head over it. "Well, your Worship," said he, "here's hoping that when your education on the matter comes, you may not find it too disastrous. Every man who's sailed these seas for long knows what mermaids can do, and I tell you straight that I for one should be the last to anger them. The good Lord grant that the mermaiden we sighted meant nothing bad, though it sticks in my mind that she came as a warning. Here's luck and dry skins to us all," said he, and poured the rum down his throat.
The coming of this mermaid, as has been said, sobered the buccaneers for the moment, but once she was gone again, rum soon washed the memory of her visit from their minds. They roared at their songs till the gale itself was outshouted, they danced about in the seas that swept the decks and tumbled foolishly in the scuppers, and not content with having the ship lit with her battle-lanterns, they must needs set a tar barrel blazing and flaring on the cook's sand-hearth, to the imminent peril of every soul on board. Wick presently was swigging at the rum, and playing the zany with the silliest of them, for it is the custom of many of these buccaneer commanders to curry popularity by joining in all excesses that may be going, and indeed outdoing all the others in their extravagances.
But Watkin, the other captain, was a man of different stamp. He did not spare the liquor indeed, but drink had small effect on him. He was a man who had a mind for many things. As a ship-captain he owned but small experience, and indeed was forced to carry a sailing-master to use the back-staff and the other utensils of navigation. It was more as a woodsman, and a hunter, and an accurate shot that he carried skill. But pre-eminently above these he was a man with a brain enamoured of commerce, and it was because of the handsome and generous way in which he talked of moneys and gains that he had been elected to a captaincy. A man who can speak glibly and alluringly of profits can always find a strong following amongst needy buccaneers.
"Anybody who likes can come round here and collect the dirty coppers," said Watkin. "I've no appetite myself for those small scrapings. And mark you, they're just as hard to get as the bigger things. I've seen Spaniards fight over a cargo of stinking bulls' hides with a fierceness that would have done them credit if they had been defending a plate ship. No, Mr. Prince, my idea is to go out with empty holds (which we've got now) and come back so loaded down with gold bars and plate that the decks are half awash. I've got no use for silks, and shawls, and chests of dainty clothes. I'm going to spend my time earning good sound silver and gold, or else know the reason why."
"Master Watkin," said the Prince, "in your business ideas you are a man exactly after my own heart. It's clear to me you've got a place that's ready for a visit in your mind's eye, and probably had your plans cut and bucanned long ago."