"About the same. Only they will go in first to make choice of their anchorage." Then he added: "But they will not stay long; no longer than to fill the casks. Perhaps a day, or till nightfall."
"'Twill be long enough for me," I thought. "An hour would suffice to get on board one of them, ask to be taken off and sent to the admiral's ship to tell my tale. Long enough."
And now I went below again--with what different feelings from those which possessed me when I went on deck, you may well suppose--and began hastily to bestow my necessaries, such as they were, into the bag I had carried behind me on my horse from Venloo to Rotterdam: a change of linen, some brushes, a sleeping gown and a good cloak, carried either around me or the bag, if warm and dry weather, my powder flask and a little sack of bullets for my cavalry pistols--that was all. Also I counted my pieces, took out my shagreen bill case and saw that my Lord Marlborough's money drafts were safe, as well as my commission to the regiment, which must now serve as a passport and letter of presentation, and I was ready to go ashore at any moment, and to transfer myself to one of the ships if they would take me with them after I had told my news, as my Lord had said I was to demand they should do. Yet, little while enough as I had been a-doing of these things, 'twas not so quickly finished but that there was time for an interruption; interruption from Mr. Carstairs, who, a moment or so after I had been in my cabin, tapped gently, almost furtively, it seemed to me, upon the door, and on my bidding him come in--I suspecting very well who it was--put his head through the opening he had made by pushing it back.
"Are we in danger?" he asked, while as he spoke, I could not but observe that he looked very badly this morning--perhaps from the renewals of his drinkings. His face was all puckered and drawn, and whiter, it seemed to me, than before; his eyes were hideously bloodshot--that must, I guessed, be the drink--while the white, coarse hand with which he grasped the panel shook, I observed.
"Danger!" I repeated coldly, as well as curtly, for, as you may be sure, I had come to thoroughly despise, as well as cordially to detest, this dissolute old man who, besides, had a black and fearful past behind him, if his feverish wanderings of mind were to be trusted. "Danger! From what?"
"There are war frigates by us," he whispered. "Do you not know?"
"Yes, I know. But you who have been, it seems, a sailor, should also know our own flag, I think."
"Our own flag! Our English flag!"
"Can you not see?"
"They are on the other side of the ship. I cannot see aught through my port."