“I just left the grinning rascal—these amiable smiles of his, Miles, are only so many grins thrown into our faces to let us feel his good luck; but, d—n him, if I ever get home, I'll fit out a privateer and be after him, if there's a fast-going schooner to be had in all America for love or money. I think I'd turn pirate, to catch the villain!”
Alas! poor Marble. Little would he, who never got higher than a mate, unless by accident, be likely to persuade your cautious ship-owners to intrust him with a vessel of any sort, to go tilting against wind-mills afloat, in that fashion.
“But, why go to America for a schooner, Captain Marble, when the French are polite enough to give us one here, exactly where we are?”
“I begin to understand you, boy. There is a little consolation in the idee, but this Frenchman has already got my commission, and without the document we should be no better than so many pirates.”
“I doubt that, sir, even were a ship to act generally, provided she actually sailed with a commission, and lost it by accident. Commissions are all registered, and proof of our character could be found at home.”
“Ay, for the Crisis, but not for this 'Pretty Polly'”—for so Marble translated Petite Pauline—“The commission is only good for the vessel that is named in it.”
“I don't know that, Captain Marble. Suppose our ship had been sunk in an action in which we took our enemy, could we not continue our voyage in the prize, and fight anything that came in our way, afterwards?”
“By George, that does look reasonable. Here was I just threatening to go out as a pirate, yet hesitating about taking my own.”
“Do not the crews of captured vessels often rise upon their captors, and recapture their own vessels? and were any of them ever called pirates? Besides, nations at war authorise almost every sort of hostile act against their enemies.”
“Miles, I have been mistaken—you are a good seaman, but natur' meant you for a lawyer! Give me your hand, boy; I see a gleam of hope ahead, and a man can live on less hope than food.”