This somehow set the boy thinking about the escape from accident when they came into port, and then of the encounter ashore, and he began talking.
“It’s no use to go down below. It’s so stuffy, and I want to chat. I say, captain, what do you think of that brig?”
“Very smartly built craft indeed, my lad—one as I should like to sail if I could do as I liked.”
“Do as you liked?” asked Rodd.
“Yes; alter her rig—make a schooner of her. But as she is she’s as pretty a vessel as I ever see—for a brig. Frenchmen don’t often turn out a boat like that.”
“What should you think she is?” asked Rodd. “A merchantman?”
“No, my lad; I should say she was something of a dispatch boat, though she aren’t a man-of-war. I don’t quite make her out. She’s got a very smart crew, and I saw two of her officers go aboard in some sort of uniform, though it was too dark to quite make it out.”
“But if she’s a man-of-war she would carry guns, wouldn’t she?” asked Rodd.
“Well, I don’t think she’s a man-of-war, my lad,” replied the skipper; “but she do carry guns, and one of them’s a big swivel I just saw amidships. But men-of-war, merchantmen, and coasters, we’re all alike in a storm, and glad to get into shelter.”
“Yes, it is a fine-looking brig. Is she likely to be a privateer?”