“Shiver my smokestack! d'ye see that, now?” exclaimed the captain at last, following with half-closed eye and tarry finger the ascent of a perfect smoke-ring that had just left his lips. “An' what's a ring o' tobackie smoke? says you. A forep'intin' to ewents to come, says I. A ring means surrounded, d'ye see; an'—grape-shot an' gun-swabs!—surrounded means fightin', lads!”
“Fun or fighting, I'm ready, anyhow!” cried Jack, flourishing his knife.
“Ay, ay, lad; an' me, too, for the matter o' that,” replied the old sailor, presenting his pipe at an imaginary foe like a pistol; “but when our situation an' forces is beknownst to the enemy, we're sartin to be surprised, d'ye mind me. An' so I gets an idee!
“Go palter to lubbers an' swabs, d'ye see?
'Bout danger, an' fear, an' the like;
A tight leetle boat an' good sea-room give me,
An' it ain't to a leetle I'll strike!”
“Out with the idea then, captain!” cried Don.
“Shiver my cutlass, lads!—we must carry the war into the camp o' the enemy, dye see'. Wery good, that bein' so, what we wants, d'ye mind me, is a safe, tidy place to fall back on, as can't be took, or looted, or burnt, like the cutter here, whiles we're away on the rampage, so to say.”
“Why not entrench ourselves on the hill just above?” suggested Jack.