It struck me that we should meet with a warm reception from the commander, when we delivered up to him the Britishers and the traitors, for by capturing the spies we had delayed the coming of the enemy for a few hours at least.
And in thinking of this I came to ask myself how we were to present ourselves? Whether as lads who wanted to make a bargain to supply the fleet with fish, or as recruits? Ponder over it as I might, it was impossible to come to any satisfactory conclusion, and I decided that before committing myself in any way I would ask the advice of my father, whom I was likely to find on some of the vessels belonging to the flotilla.
It was Darius who broke in upon my perplexing thoughts by asking:
"Well, what do you think of it now, lad? We couldn't have done the job any browner if we'd had on board a full cargo of rifles an' ammunition."
"Ay, Darius, it has been well done because you were on hand; but I question if another might have worked the scheme as well."
"There are thousands who'd make less bungle of it," the old man replied, and I could see that he was well pleased because of being praised, even by a boy. "All that's needed is a little backbone; but if the other fellow happens to have more'n you've got, then things are apt to go wrong."
"Thanks to your arrangement of the affair, the enemy didn't have a chance to show his pluck; but we'd have been in a bad box if you hadn't made the Britishers believe, for a minute or two, that we were their friends."
Darius laughed heartily as he thought of the brief conversation with the sailors, and then said with a chuckle:
"If I'd only known the name of a vessel belongin' to their fleet, we'd been right on top of 'em before bein' found out; but as it was we got well alongside when the trouble began."
Then Jerry came aft to take part in the conversation, and we spent a good half-hour praising each other and chuckling over the good fortune that had been ours.