"Execute them, with all my heart, sir: if you are ordered to heave-to my ship, all you have to do is to get on board if you can, and let us see the style in which you handle yards. As to the people now stationed at the braces, the trumpet that will make them stir is not to be spoken through at the Admiralty. The fellow has spirit in him, and I like his principles as an officer, but I cannot admit his conclusions as a jurist. If he flatters himself with being able to frighten us into a new category, now, that is likely to impair national rights, the lad has just got himself into a problem that will need all his logic, and a good deal of his spirit, to get out of again."
"You will scarcely think of resisting a king's officer in British waters!" said the young man with that haughtiness that the meekest tempers soon learn to acquire under a pennant.
"Resisting, my dear sir! I resist nothing. The misconception is in supposing that you sail this ship instead of John Truck. That is my name, sir; John Truck. Do your errand in welcome, but do not ask me to help you. Come aboard, with all my heart; nothing would give me more pleasure than to take wine with you; but I see no necessity of stopping a packet, that is busy on a long road, without an object, as we say on the other side of the big waters."
There was a pause, and then the lieutenant, with the sort of hesitation that a gentleman is apt to feel when he makes a proposal that he knows ought not to be accepted, called out that those in the boat with him would pay for the detention of the ship. A more unfortunate proposition could not be made to Captain Truck, who would have hove-to his ship in a moment had the lieutenant proposed to discuss Vattel with him on the quarter-deck, and who was only holding out as a sort of salve to his rights, with that disposition to resist aggression that the experience of the last forty years has so deeply implanted in the bosom of every American sailor, in cases connected with English naval officers, and who had just made up his mind to let Robert Davis take his chance, and to crack a bottle with the handsome young man who was still standing up in the boat. But Mr. Truck had been too often to London not to understand exactly the manner in which Englishmen appreciate American character; and, among other things, he knew it was the general opinion in the island that money could do any thing with Jonathan; or, as Christophe is said once to have sententiously expressed the same sentiment, "if there were a bag of coffee in h---, a Yankee could be found to go and bring it out."
The master of the Montauk had a proper relish for his lawful gains as well as another, but he was vain-glorious on the subject of his countrymen, principally because he found that the packets outsailed all other merchant-ships, and fiercely proud of any quality that others were disposed to deny them.
At hearing this proposal, or intimation, therefore, instead of accepting it, Captain Truck raised his hat with formal civility, and coolly wished the other "good night." This was bringing the affair to a crisis at once; for the helm of the cutter was borne up, and an attempt was made to run the boat alongside of the ship. But the breeze had been steadily increasing, the air had grown heavier as the night advanced, and the dampness of evening was thickening the canvas of the coarser sails in a way sensibly to increase the speed of the ship. When the conversation commenced, the boat was abreast of the fore-rigging; and by the time it ended, it was barely up with the mizzen. The lieutenant was quick to see the disadvantage he laboured under, and he called out "Heave!" as he found the cutter was falling close under the counter of the ship, and would be in her wake in another minute. The bowman of the boat cast a light grapnel with so much precision that it hooked in the mizzen rigging, and the line instantly tightened so as to tow the cutter. A seaman was passing along the outer edge of the hurricane-house at the moment, coming from the wheel, and with the decision of an old salt, he quietly passed his knife across the stretched cordage, and it snapped like pack-thread. The grapnel fell into the sea, and the boat was lossing in the wake of the ship, all as it might be while one could draw a breath. To furl the sails and ship the oars consumed but an instant, and then the cutter was ploughing the water under the vigorous strokes of her crew.
"Spirited! spirited and nimble!" observed Captain Truck, who stood coolly leaning against a shroud, in a position where he could command a view of all that was passing, improving the opportunity to shake the ashes from his cigar while he spoke; "a fine young fellow, and one who will make an admiral, or something better, I dare say, if he live;--perhaps a cherub, in time. Now, if he pull much longer in the back-water of our wake, I shall have to give him up, Leach, as a little marin-ish: ah! there he sheers out of it, like a sensible youth as he is! Well, there is something pleasant in the conceit of a six-oared boat's carrying a London liner by boarding, even admitting the lad could have got alongside."
So, it would seem, thought Mr. Leach and the crew of the Montauk; for they were clearing the decks with as much philosophy as men ever discover when employed in an unthankful office. This sang-froid of seamen is always matter of surprise to landsmen; but adventurers who have been rocked in the tempest for years, whose utmost security is a great hazard, and whose safety constantly depends on the command of the faculties, come in time to experience an apathy on the subject of all the minor terrors and excitements of life, that none can acquire unless by habit and similar risks. There was a low laugh among the people, and now and then a curious glance of the eye over the quarter to ascertain the position of the struggling boat; but there the effect of the little incident ceased, so far as the seamen were concerned.
Not so with the passengers. The Americans exulted at the failure of the man-of-war's man, and the English doubted. To them, deference to the crown was habitual, and they were displeased at seeing a stranger play a king's boat such a trick, in what they justly enough thought to be British waters. Although the law may not give a man any more right than another to the road before his own door, he comes in time to fancy it, in a certain degree, his particular road. Strictly speaking, the Montauk was perhaps still under the dominion of the English laws, though she had been a league from the land when laying at her anchor, and by this time the tide and her own velocity had swept her broad off into the offing quite as far again; indeed she had now got to such a distance from the land, that Captain Truck thought it his "duty" to bring matters to a conclusion with the attorney.
"Well, Mr. Seal," he said, "I am grateful for the pleasure of your company thus far; but you will excuse me if I decline taking you and Mr. Grab quite to America. Half an hour hence you will hardly be able to find the island; for as soon as we have got to a proper distance from the cutter, I shall tack to the south-west, and you ought, moreover, to remember the anxiety of the ladies at home."