"Yes, and should like to see some of your fellows."
"They are quarrelsome, I presume," observed Mr. Basset.
"Very, and very apt to use their knives. Keep her away a point or two to the southward, Ellerton," said he to the man at the wheel. "Mr. Quail, desire the watch to bring those lee braces more aft."
"They should be restricted in the use of such weapons as sheath-knives, by law," said Mr. Basset, emphatically, and thinking, perhaps, of his judge's wig, which he had been recently trying on.
"So they should, sir, but the law seldom reaches far into blue water, unless so be as a Queen's pennant is floating over it. Do you see that fellow out upon the arm of the mainyard just now?"
"Ah!—what is he perched up there for?—amusement?" asked Mr. Basset.
"He is busy securing the eye of the stun'sail boom."
"Well, captain?"
"To my mind, he is the very model of a pirate."
They all looked up, and saw a large-boned, powerful, athletic, dark-skinned, and black-whiskered fellow, clad in a red shirt, and a pair of remarkably dirty canvas trousers, secured about his waist by a black belt, in which a long sheath-knife was stuck.