“I will answer that with a question first,” replied Conyngham. “How much longer shall I be detained in this ‘durance vile’? By the Powers, I’m tired of it.”
“Four or five days, perhaps a week.”
“That is right and will do well. You’re supposed by many to be an English merchant here, Mr. Hodge. I am, and will be for a little time, a prisoner. You did not figure in the purchase of the Surprise, but there is a fine two-masted craft of something over a hundred tons lying moored at the end of the long wharf. She is for sale. Buy her at once.”
“And then what?”
“Fit her out with stores for a two months’ cruise. I will secure her armament and crew upon my release.”
“We shall surely be in trouble again.”
“Not much this time. To my thinking, the French Government will be glad to be rid of us. To the south of us lies Spain with its open market, to the west of England lies Ireland with many a well-provisioned port and friendly hand, and there is always our own country. Had my last vessel been big enough to have crossed safely and had we not taken those unlucky mails, it was for home that I would have headed the Surprise.”
“She lived up to the definition of her name; what would you call this one?”
“I would be after calling her,” replied Conyngham slyly and in the softest of brogues, “I’d be after calling her the Revenge.”