“I say, Ladle,” whispered Vince, “this is like what we have often read of. How do you feel? There’s going to be a fight. Look! they’re loading the guns aft.”
“Oh, I feel all right yet,—just a little shivery like. But what makes you say there’s going to be a fight?”
“Didn’t you see the schooner hoist a flag?”
“Of course I did, but I thought she was a friend. Why are they going to fight? Oh, I know: it’s only a sham fight, for practice.”
“I don’t believe it is sham; the skipper looked too serious. I saw him showing his teeth, and the men all look in earnest. They’ve been doing something old Jacques don’t like, and he’s going to bring them to their senses. Here, I say, you’re not getting those ready for breakfast?”
They were opposite the galley as Vince spoke, and he had suddenly caught sight of the cook, who was hurrying on his fire, and heating about half a dozen rods of iron between the bars of the stove.
“Oh yes, I am,” said the man, with a grin—“for somebody’s breakfast. I say, youngsters, I’d go down below if I was you; it may mean warm work if the wind don’t come soon.”
“What has the wind to do with it?” said Vince.
“To do with it! Everything, my lad. If the wind comes, we shall run, of course. We don’t want to fight.”
“But why are we going to fight the schooner?”