“Surely I know the advantages of the country you mean.”
“I fear not!” quickly returned the Rover. “Were they known, as they should be, by you and others like you, the flag I mentioned would soon be found in every sea; nor would the natives of our country have to succumb to the hirelings of a foreign prince.
“I will not affect to misunderstand your meaning for I have known others as visionary as yourself in fancying that such an event may arrive.”
“May!—As certain as that star will settle in the ocean, or that day is to succeed to night, it must. Had that flag been abroad, Mr Wilder, no man would have ever heard the name of the Red Rover.”
“The King has a service of his own, and it is open to all his subjects alike.”
“I could be a subject of a King; but to be the subject of a subject, Wilder, exceeds the bounds of my poor patience. I was educated, I might almost have said born, in one of his vessels; and how often have I been made to feel, in bitterness, that an ocean separated my birth-place from the footstool of his throne! Would you think it, sir? one of his Commanders dared to couple the name of my country with an epithet I will not wound your ear by repeating!”
“I hope you taught the scoundrel manners.”
The Rover faced his companion, and there was a ghastly smile on his speaking features, as he answered—
“He never repeated the offence! ’Twas his blood or mine; and dearly did he pay the forfeit of his brutality!”
“You fought like men, and fortune favoured the injured party?”