"If you are really Mr. Landale," he began, adding hastily, as if to cover an implied admission—"of course I have heard the name: it is well known in Lancashire—you had better see the skipper. It must have been some damnable mistake that has caused a man of your standing to be pressed."
The speaker ended with almost a deferential air and the smile that had already warmed Adrian's heart. At the door of the Captain's quarters he said, with the suspicion of a twinkle in his eye:
"A curious error it was you made, I assure you my name is Smith—Jack Smith, of Liverpool."
"An excusable error," quoth Adrian, smiling back, "for one of your seals bear unmistakably the arms of Cochrane of the Shaws, doubtless some heirloom, some inter-marriage."
"No, sir, hang it!" retorted Mr. Jack Smith of Liverpool, his boyish face flushing again, and as he spoke he disengaged the trinket from its neighbours, and jerked it pettishly overboard, "I know nothing of your Shaws or your Cochranes."
And then he rapped loudly at the cabin-door, as if anxious to avoid further discussion or comment on the subject.
The result of the interview which followed—interview during which Adrian in a few words overcame the skipper's scepticism, and was bidden with all the curiosity men feel at sea for any novelty, to relate, over a bottle of wine, the chain of his adventures—was his passing from the forecastle to the officers' quarters, as an honoured guest on board the St. Nicholas, during the rest of her cruise.
Thinking back now upon the last few weeks of his sea-going life, Sir Adrian realised with something of wonder that he had always dwelt on them without dislike. They were gilded in his memory by the rays of his new friendship.
And yet that this young Jack Smith (to keep for him the nondescript name he had for unknown reasons chosen to assume) should be the first man to awaken in the misanthropic Adrian the charm of human intercourse, was singular indeed; one who followed from choice the odious trade of legally chartered corsair, who was ever ready to barter the chance of life and limb against what fortune might bring in his path, to sacrifice human life to secure his own end of enrichment.
Well, the springs of friendship are to be no more discerned than those of love; there was none of high or low degree, with the exception of René, whose appearance at any time was so welcome to the recluse upon his rock, as that of the privateersman.