"Three cheers for Captain John Paul Jones!" cried one of the seamen, leaping on a gun and waving his hat; they were given with a mighty rush from nearly two hundred lusty throats, the ship being heavily overmanned for future emergencies.
"That will do, men," said the captain, smiling darkly. "Remember that a willing crew makes a happy cruise—and don't wake the sleeping cat![1] Mr. Seymour, have the boatswain pipe all hands to grog, then set the watches. Mr. Talbot," he added, turning to the young officer in the familiar buff and blue of the Continental army, who stood by his side, an interested and attentive spectator to all that had occurred, "will you do me the honor of taking a glass of wine with me in the cabin?—I should be glad if you would join us also, Mr. Seymour, after the watch has been called, and you can leave the deck. Let Mr. Wallingford have the watch; he is familiar with the bay. Tell him to take in the royal and the fore and mizzen topgallantsails if it blows heavily," he continued, after a pause, and then, bowing, he left the deck.
[1] The cat-o'-nine-tails, used for punishment by flogging.
CHAPTER XII
An Important Commission
Meanwhile, interesting conversations were going on forward, of which this is a sample.
"I 'm blest if I like this orderin' business," said one grizzled seaman; "they said he was h—l on orders, but what I shipped for was prize money and a chance to get a lick at them bloody Britishers; not for to clean brass work, an' scrape spars, an' flemish down, an' holy-stone decks, which he won't let us spit terbacker on. I don't call this no fighting fur liberty, not by a durn sight."
"Shut up, Bill," replied another; "you've got to obey orders. This yere ain't no old tea wagon, no fishing-boat, you old scowbanker, it's a wessel-o'-war; and may I never see Nantucket again if the old man," using a merchantman's expression, "ain't goin' to be captain of the old hooker while he's in it. And if you call this hard work and growl at this kind o' dissyplin'—well, all I got ter say, you'd oughter been on the old Radnor. Curse the British devils!" he cried, grinding his heel in the deck. "I 'd give twenty years of my life to be alongside her in a ship half her size; yes, even in this one, and I tell ye yon 's the man to put her there, if he gets a chance. Ain't that so, mates?"
"Ay, ay, Jack, 'tis true," came a deep-toned chorus of approval.
"Besides," went on the forecastle orator, "we all know'd wot kind of a officer he is. Fightin' and prize money is wot we all want; and here 's where we 'll git it, you 'll see, eh, mates?"