“And a fine service too, my lad. But how has this skipper behaved to you since you’ve been with him?”
“Oh, as if I had been his own son, sir,” cried Fitz warmly; “and his boy and I have been the best of friends.”
“But I say, you’ve been a regular young filibuster all the time, breaking the laws and helping in a revolution. Why, you’ve been carrying on high jinks, and no mistake! But you don’t mean to tell me you want to stay with them?”
“Oh no, of course not. I want to rejoin the Tonans.”
“Where do you say—in the Channel Service? Well, I can’t take you there.”
“I thought, sir, that perhaps you would put me on board some English cruiser,” cried Fitz.
“And I will, of course. But it may be a month first.”
“I don’t mind that, sir,” said Fitz, “so long as I can send a message home, for they must think I’m—”
He broke down here, for he could bear no more.
What he had thought would be all joy proved to be pain, and as he was turning away, it was with the knowledge that the American captain had read him through and through, giving him a warm pressure of the hand, and saying, just loud enough for him to hear—