For the captain had approached the two midshipmen, his spy-glass under his arm and his face puckered up with a good-humoured smile.
“Laughing at it, eh?” he said. “That was a novel evolution of war, young gentlemen, such as you never saw before, I’ll be bound. There; we might have shattered up the noble black king’s fleet and left the river red with what we did and the sharks continued afterwards, but my plan and the master’s conning of the vessel answered all purposes, and left my powder magazine untouched ready for the time when we shall be straining every nerve, gentlemen, to overtake that Yankee’s schooner. That’s what we have to do, Mr Roberts; eh, Mr Murray?”
“Yes, sir; and the sooner the better,” replied the latter.
“The sooner the better? Yes,” said the captain, nodding; “and if we have to sink her that will be work more worthy for our metal. But patience, patience. Yes; for sailors like better work than sinking a few savage canoes. But, as I said, patience. You hot-blooded boys are always in such a hurry. All in good time. I’m not going to rest till I have got hold of my smooth, smiling Yankee, and I promise you a treat—some real fighting with his crew of brutal hounds. I’ll sink his schooner, or lay the Seafowl alongside, and then—it will be risky but glorious, and you boys shall both of you, if you like, join the boarders. What do you say to that?”
The captain did not wait for an answer, but tucked his telescope more closely under his arm and marched aft, to stand gazing over the stern rail at the last of the war canoes, which disappeared directly in one of the river bends, while the sloop glided rapidly on towards the muddy river’s mouth.
“Well, Dick, how do you feel now?” said Murray, smiling.
Roberts knit his brows into a fierce frown as if ready to resent any remark his messmate might make. But the genial, open, frank look which met his disarmed him of all annoyance, and he cleared his throat with a cough.
“Oh, I don’t agree with him about the treatment of those blacks,” he said. “There’s a want of stern, noble justice about his running down that canoe.”
“But it answered all purposes, Dick.”
“Humph! Maybe; but it looked so small, especially when we had all our guns loaded and the men ready for action.”