"He has, indeed, my lord."
Here, Nelson, who had been pacing the cabin with quick steps, while Cuffe stood, respectfully declining the gesture to be seated at the table in its centre, suddenly stopped and looked the Captain steadily in the face. The expression of his countenance was now mild and earnest, and the pause which preceded his words gave the latter solemnity and weight.
"The day will come, Cuffe," he said, "when this young man will rejoice that his design on these picaroons, Frenchmen as they are, failed. Yes, from the bottom of his heart will he be glad."
"My lord!"
"I know you think this strange, Captain Cuffe; but no man sleeps the sounder for having burnt or blown up a hundred of his fellow-creatures like so many widows at a suttee. But we are not the less to commend those who did what was certainly their duty."
"Am I to understand, Lord Nelson, that the Proserpine is not to destroy the Few-Folly at every hazard, should we again have the luck to fall in with her?"
"By no means, sir. Our orders are to burn, sink, and destroy. Such is England's policy in this desperate war; and it must be carried out. You know what we are contending for as well as I do; and it is a struggle that is not to be carried on with courtesies; still, one would not wish to see a glorious and sacred cause tarnished by inhumanity. Men that fall in fair, manly combat are to be envied rather than pitied, since it is only paying the great debt of nature a little sooner than might otherwise have happened; but there is something revolting to humanity in burning up our fellow-creatures as one would burn rags after the plague. Nevertheless, this lugger must be had at any price; for English commerce and English power are not to be cut up and braved in this audacious manner with impunity. The career of these French tigers must be stopped at every sacrifice, Captain Cuffe."
"I know that, my lord, and I like a republican as little as you can do, or His Majesty himself, for that matter; and, I take it, he has as little relish for the animal as flesh and blood can give."
"I know you do, Cuffe--I'm sure you do; and I esteem you all the more for it. It is a part of an Englishman's religion, in times like these, to hate a Frenchman. I went across the Channel after the peace of '83 to learn their language, but had so little sympathy with them, even in peaceable times, as never to be able to make out to write a letter in it, or even to ask intelligibly for the necessaries of life."
"If you can ask for anything, it far surpasses my efforts; I never can tell head from stern in their dialect."