They all laughed at Yaspard's words, but they all knew how potent was Fred's spell, and did not wonder at the boy's enthusiasm.
"I suppose," said Fred then, "that before I answer your letter we should explain about your captive, taken in fair war, and here ready to yield himself back into your hands if you are not satisfied with his explanation and the ransom we bring."
"It's here—just as you stipulated," Bill Mitchell exclaimed, rattling a little tin pail he carried; "pebbles wet with the waves of Westervoe. See!" and he jerked off the lid and showed some stones in a pail full of salt water.
"If I were Gloy," burst forth the blunt and tactless Tom Holtum, "I'd be ashamed of being valued at such a trumpery price. If you had priced him against a bit of lichen torn from the Head of Calloster, which might have cost us our lives to procure, that would have been more like the thing. But beach stones in salt water, bah!"
"Tom, lad!" said Fred gently, "if you were living in a city far from Lunda—as I have been—you would put a higher price on pebbles wet with the sea that girdles the old isle. I picked up a small stone myself, when I left home for the first time, and I carried it always in my pocket. I keep it still for sake of its memories; one values a trifle for reasons known only to himself."
His companions had not reached the age when boys learn to put a little sentiment into their actions, so they only stared in surprised silence; but Yaspard fully appreciated what Fred said, and remarked, "It was a little like that way that I was thinking when I bade them bring those pebbles. I must not go to Westervoe myself, so I thought I'd like to have something from it. I thought I should feel more like one of you boys—not so much by myself, and all that sort of thing—if I could handle something that reminded me of you." Then, tossing back his head rather proudly, as he caught Tom winking to Bill, he added, "You value that flag at your masthead for what it reminds you of—not its mere money value. I might call it a dirty old rag, but you price it highly. I dare say you see what I mean now. I'm not good at explaining myself."
They broke into a cheer, and Tom's voice was the loudest of the lot. "Oh, you're not a bad sort," he tried, "and you must take our chaff in good part. You'll see enough of Westervoe before you're done with us, I'll be bound; and as for adventures—why, man, you're providing us with them! You are the inventor of adventure. Take out a patent, and you'll make a fortune out of us, for we love that sort of thing better than a miser loves his money."
"I'm burning tae hear Gloy's story," said Lowrie, as soon as Tom gave any one a chance to speak. So Gloy was shoved to the front, and bidden to "speak up, and speak quick," which he did right willingly.
"It was Mr. Adiesen in his dingy," he said. "He was ahint the skerry when we were in the geo, and heard a'."
"I might have guessed as much if I had not been an ass," Yaspard exclaimed. "I might have known that Pirate would only obey one of us from Moolapund."