Poole looked at his companion curiously.
“But you felt that you must do it, didn’t you?” he said.
“Oh, yes,” cried Fitz, “I was desperate; but I never want to go through such a five minutes again. Let’s see, I stepped along there,” he continued, pointing and following the steps his memory taught him that he must have taken to get round to the back of the great gun. “Yes, this is exactly where I stood to swing round those great balls and open the breech, but only to be disappointed, finding as I did that the block was fast. Oh, Poole, how I did tug and strain at it, feeling all the while that I had been boasting and bragging to your father, and that after all I was only a poor miserable impostor who had been professing to know a great deal, when I was as ignorant as could be, and that I was being deservedly punished in that terrible failure that was taking place.”
“Ah, I remember,” cried Poole; “you said the block stuck fast?”
“Yes, till the idea came that I had not turned the great screw far enough.”
“But you ought to have made sure of that at first.”
“Of course I ought,” cried Fitz sharply, “and I ought to have been as cool and calm as possible when doing such a venturesome thing—in the pitch-darkness, with perhaps ten or a dozen of the Spanish sailors—the watch—”
“The watch!” cried Poole, laughing. “Come, I like that.”
“Well, then, men lying about all round us. You were perfectly cool of course?”
“I!” replied Poole. “Why I was in a state of high fever. I didn’t know whether I was on my head or my heels. I believe, old fellow, that I was half mad with excitement.”