“No, sir,” said Chips; “that’s just what I think. Them Spaniels aren’t very clever, but they all seem to have got eyes in their heads. Now, this ’ere’s a better idee. Say you are the skipper, and you says to half-a-dozen of us, ‘Now, my lads, them there Span’ls is making themselves a regular noosance with that there big gun. Don’t you think you could take the gig to-night, drop down under their bows, hook on by the fore-chains, and then swarm up on the quiet like, catch hold of the big gun, carry her to the side, and drop her over into deep water!’”
“Ha! ha! Capital!” cried Fitz. “Splendid! Yes, I don’t believe she weighs more than two or three tons. Why, Poole, we ought to go to-night. They wouldn’t be able to get her up again without a lighter and divers from New York. But it’s a capital idea.”
“Don’t you mind what he says,” growled the carpenter. “He’s a-quizzing on us, my lads. Well, I gives that up. That job would be a bit too stiff.”
“Yes,” said Poole, laughing. “Try again.”
“I dunno what they wants a great clumsy lumbering thing like that aboard a ship for. Bower-anchors is bad enough, banging against your craft; but you can lower them down to the bottom when your ship gets tired, and give her a bit of a rest.”
“Yes,” said one of the other sailors; “you’ll have to think of something better than that, Shavings.”
“Ay, but that was a fine idea, my lad, if the gun had been a bit lighter. The Span’ls would have been so flabbergasted when they heard the splash, that we should have had lots of time to get away. Now, let me see; let me see. What we wants is a big hole in that gunboat’s bottom, so that they would be obliged to take to their boats. What do you say to this? I’ve got a bottle of stain aboard as I used to do over the wood at the top of the locker in the skipper’s cabin, and made it look like hoggermy. Now, suppose I undressed a bit, say to my flannel-shirt, tied an old red comforter that I’ve got round my waist, to keep my trowges up, and then touches my hands and arms and phiz over with some of that stain. Then I swims off to the gunboat, asks civil like for the Don skipper, and says I’m a Spanish AB and a volunteer come on the job.”
“And what then?” said Fitz, laughing.
“Ah, you may laugh, sir. But you can’t expect a common sailor like me, who’s a bit handy with his hammer and saw, to be up to all the dodges of an educated young gent like you as has sarved his time aboard the Bry-tannia in Dartmouth Harbour. But of course there’s a ‘what then’ to all I said. I shouldn’t want to dress myself up like a play-hactor in a penny show, with a red pocket-hankerchy tied to a mop-stick, big boots, and a petticut instead of trowges, pretending he’s a black pirate, with a blood-red flag, one of your penny plain and twopence coloured kind, you know. I did lots of them when I was a young ’un, and had a box of paints. Not me. There’s a ‘what then’ to all this ’ere, a sting to it, same as there is in a wopse’s tail.”
“Let’s have it then,” said Fitz. “I want to hear what you’d do when Don Cousin there shakes hands with you and says, ‘You’re the very man I’ve been waiting for all through this voyage.’”