“Are we to sink the cutter, sir?” said the gunner, now advancing towards Captain Paul. “If it is to be done, now is the time. She is close under us, astern; a few guns pointed downwards will settle her like a shotted corpse.”
“No. Let her drift into Penzance, an anonymous earnest of what the whitesquall in Paul Jones intends for the future.”
Then giving directions as to the course of the ship, with an order for himself to be called at the first glimpse of a sail, Paul took Israel down with him into his cabin.
“Tell me your story now, my yellow lion. How was it all? Don’t stand, sit right down there on the transom. I’m a democratic sort of sea-king. Plump on the woolsack, I say, and spin the yarn. But hold; you want some grog first.”
As Paul handed the flagon, Israel’s eye fell upon his hand.
“You don’t wear any rings now, Captain, I see. Left them in Paris for safety.”
“Aye, with a certain marchioness there,” replied Paul, with a dandyish look of sentimental conceit, which sat strangely enough on his otherwise grim and Fejee air.
“I should think rings would be somewhat inconvenient at sea,” resumed Israel. “On my first voyage to the West Indies, I wore a girl’s ring on my middle finger here, and it wasn’t long before, what with hauling wet ropes, and what not, it got a kind of grown down into the flesh, and pained me very bad, let me tell you, it hugged the finger so.”
“And did the girl grow as close to your heart, lad?”
“Ah, Captain, girls grow themselves off quicker than we grow them on.”