But Mr Vanslyperken was in no pleasant humour, and ordered the cutter to be hove-to.
"I tink de men have pull enough all night," said Jansen, who had just been relieved at the wheel, to Obadiah Coble, who was standing by him on the forecastle.
"I think so too: but there'll be a breeze, depend upon it--never mind, the devil will have his own all in good time."
"Got for dam," said Jansen, looking at Beachy Head, and shaking his own.
"Why, what's the matter now, old Schnapps?" said Coble.
"Schnapps--yes--the tyfel--Schnapps, I think how the French schnapped us Dutchmen here when you Englishmen wouldn't fight."
"Mind what you say, old twenty breeches--wouldn't fight--when wouldn't we fight?"
"Here, where we were now, by Got, you leave us all in the lurch, and not come down."
"Why, we couldn't come down."
"Bah!" replied Jansen, who referred to the defeat of the combined Dutch and English fleet by the French off Beachy Head in 1690.