"Save for the order of your Grace, my advice would be to put ourselves at once on defence, for I think that this pirate, held like ourselves in these quarters by the contrary winds, will attack us, not believing us ready to receive it, and reckoning, moreover, upon the number of its crew."
"Let us prove, then, to these pirates, that they are mistaken, my brave Williams, and that forty John Bulls are worth more than this gang of scoundrels, than this cosmopolitan specimen of gallows-game. Ah, well," added Falmouth, seeing me, "here, my friend, is something which works admirably; this adventure delights me. It is an excellent introduction to our frolic with Canaris; it is the overture of our opera!"
"In truth dilettanti" I replied, "let us prepare to do our part, and seek for our arms."
I descended to my room.
Falmouth entered almost as soon as I.
Inasmuch as he had appeared to me pleased and resolute on deck, so now I found him with an air sad and troubled.
He took my hands with emotion, and said: "Arthur, I am now in despair with this folly!"
"Of what folly do you speak?"
"If you should be wounded, dangerously wounded," casting upon me an affectionate glance, "I should never forgive myself."
"And do you not run the same risks?"