“Do shut up, Dale, and cease making a fool of yourself. I wonder that you are not ashamed to behave in this unmanly way, especially before ladies, too. If you can’t keep quiet, you know, we shall have to put you on deck, where I fancy you would get something worth howling about.”
This threat had the desired effect; Mr Dale subsided into silence, and the rest of the party at once, in low cautious tones, began an interchange of ideas which lasted a long time but brought forth no very satisfactory result; the council finding itself at the close of the discussion pretty much where it was at the commencement.
At one o’clock a thoroughly substantial dinner was served to them, followed by tea at six in the evening, at both of which meals the pirate captain did the honours with a manifest desire to evince a friendly disposition toward his guests, and about nine p.m. a quiet and unobtrusive removal from the cabin to their new quarters in the after-hold was effected; after which most of the party disposed themselves comfortably upon the bedding which they found had been provided for them, and enjoyed a night of thoroughly sound repose, such as they had been strangers to ever since the destruction of the Galatea.
When our friends awoke on the following morning they became aware, by the motion of the ship and the sound of the water gurgling along her sides, that a breeze had sprung up. Most of the gentlemen—all of them, in fact, except Dale—went on deck, and, finding the watch busy washing decks, borrowed of them a few buckets with which they gave each other a most hearty and refreshing salt water douche, much to the amusement of the crew.
As soon as breakfast was over, Lance, with that cool insouciance characteristic of the man who has so often found himself environed by perils that he ceases to think of them, went again on deck, with the intention of mingling freely with the pirate crew, and, if possible, placing himself upon such easy terms with them as would give him an opportunity of acquiring whatever information it might be in their power to give. The first individual he saw on emerging from the hatchway was Johnson, the pirate captain, who was leaning moodily over the lee rail abaft the main-rigging, smoking a well-seasoned pipe.
“Good morning, captain,” exclaimed Lance genially, as he sauntered up to the man. “What a delightful morning—and how good your tobacco smells! I have not enjoyed the luxury of a pipe for the last fortnight; have you any tobacco to spare?”
“Help yourself, stranger,” answered Johnson rather surlily, as he tendered his tobacco-pouch.
“Thanks,” said Lance, returning the pouch after he had filled and lighted his pipe. “Ah! how good this is,” as he took the first whiff or two. “You have a fine breeze after yesterday’s calm; and the brig seems quite a traveller in her small way.”
“In her small way!” exclaimed Johnson indignantly; “why, she’s a flyer, stranger, that’s what she is. I reckon you don’t know much about ships, or you wouldn’t talk like that. I guess you ain’t a sailor, are you?”
“I am a soldier by profession,” answered Lance, “but for all that I am not exactly an unmitigated land-lubber; on the contrary I am quite an enthusiastic yachtsman, and I flatter myself that I know a good model when I see one.”