Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase: A Tale of the Sea

by James Fenimore Cooper

As this was an order, the mate did not scruple about obeying it. He was soon afloat, and on his way towards the launch. Captain Truck now hailed the top, and inquired what the Arabs were about. The answer was satisfactory, as they were still busy with their camels and in pitching their tents. This did not look much like an immediate war, and bidding the man aloft to give timely notice of their approach, Mr. Truck fancied he might still have time to shift his sheers, and to whip out the mizzen-mast, and he accordingly set about it without further delay.

As every one worked, as it might be for life, in fifteen minutes this light spar was suspended in the falls. In ten more its heel was clear of the bulwarks, and it was lowered on the sands almost by the run. To knock off the top and roll it down to the water took but a few minutes longer, and then the people were called to their breakfast; the sentinel aloft reporting that the Arabs were employed in the same manner, and in milking their camels. This was a fortunate relief, and every body ate in peace, and in the full assurance that those whom they so much distrusted were equally engaged in the same pacific manner.

Neither the Arabs nor the seamen, however, lost any unnecessary time at the meal. The former were soon reported to be coming and going in parties of fifteen or twenty, arriving and departing in an eastern direction. Occasionally a single runner went or came alone, on a fleet dromedary, as if communications were held with other bodies which lay deeper in the desert. All this intelligence rendered Captain Truck very uneasy, and he thought it time seriously to take some decided measures to bring this matter to an issue. Still, as time gained was all in his favour if improved, he first ordered the men to begin to shift the sheers forward, in hopes of being yet able to carry off the foremast; a spar that would be exceedingly useful, as it would save the necessity of fishing a new head to the one which still stood in the packet. He then went aside with his two ambassadors, with a view to give his instructions.

Mr. Dodge had no sooner found himself safe in the launch than he felt his courage revive, and with his courage, his ingenuity, self-love and assurance. While in the water, a meeker man there was not on earth; he had even some doubts as to the truth of all his favourite notions of liberty and equality, for men think fast in danger, and there was an instant when he might have been easily persuaded to acknowledge himself a demagogue and a hypocrite in his ordinary practices; one whose chief motive was self, and whose besetting passions were envy, distrust and malice; or, in other words, very much the creature he was. Shame came next, and he eagerly sought an excuse for the want of manliness he had betrayed; but, passing over the language he had held in the launch, and the means Mr. Leach found to persuade him to land again, we shall give his apology in his own words, as he now somewhat hurriedly delivered it, to Captain Truck, in his own person.

"I must have misunderstood your arrangement, captain," he said; "for somehow, though how I do not exactly know--but somehow the alarm of the Arabs was no sooner given than I felt as if I ought to be in the launch to be at my post; but I suppose it was because I knew that the sails and spars that brought us here are mostly there, and that this was the spot to be most resolutely defended. I do think, if they had waded off to us, I should have fought like a tiger!"

"No doubt you would, my dear sir, and like a wild cat too! We all make mistakes in judgment, in war, and in politics, and no fact is better known than that the best soldiers in the end are they who give a little ground at the first attack. But Mr. Leach has explained to you the plan of Mr. Monday, and I rely on your spirit and zeal, which there is now an excellent opportunity to prove, as before it was only demonstrated."

"If it were only an opportunity of meeting the Arabs sword in hand, captain."

"Pooh! pooh! my dear friend, take two swords if you choose. One who is full of fight can never get the battle on his own terms. Fill the Arabs with the schnaps of the poor Dane, and if they should make the smallest symptom of moving down towards us, I rely on you to give the alarm, in order that we may be ready for them. Trust to us for the overture of the piece, as I trust to you for the overtures of peace."

"In what way can we possibly do this, Mr. Monday? How can we give the alarm in season?

"Why," interposed the unmoved captain, "you may just shoot the sheik, and that will be killing two birds with one stone; you will take your pistols, of course, and blaze away upon them, starboard and larboard; rely on it, we shall hear you."