You may be sure that he went very willingly, the ship proving to be the Guinea, and an old Commonwealth frigate I knew very well, and a good sailer; and brave enough did Phips look as he took his seat in his boat, all adorned in his best scarlet coat and his great wig; "for," says he, "hot as the morning is, and will be hotter, I will not go to greet a brother-captain foully dressed."
That we in the Algier Rose waited impatiently enough for the news you may be sure, and, since 'twas long a-coming, that impatience became very great. Indeed, 'twas not till night was near at hand that we saw the boat coming back to us, while at the same time we saw the great frigate's topsayl fill, and observed her slowly gather way and steer towards the west. Then, a while later, the Captain came aboard, and, sending for me into his cabin, he said, while I noticed that his face was grave and sad:
"Nick, we have to give up the search; we shall not get the plate now. The frigate was, as doubtless you made out, the Guinea, on her way to Jamaica to relieve the Constant Warwick, and brought me my orders to go home."
"But," said I, "the commission was for five years; they are not yet expired."
"Nay," says he, "that matters not. The King is dead, and has been so for a year, and the Duke of York has succeeded him. And he believes not in putting the ships of his navy to treasure hunts, deeming such things better for private adventurers. Moreover, he says the Algier Rose can do better service at home against his enemies--of which the Captain of the Guinea says he has a many--than in fishing for plate. So, to-morrow, Nick, we will take in water from the island, and away to England."
"'Tis pity," says I, "a many pities. Yet the King's orders must be obey'd. And the plate--I wonder who will get that?"
"I shall," said Phips sharply, "and you, Nick, if you will follow me. For the very moment I give up my command of this ship, I shall seek out those private adventurers of whom the new King speaks. I would pawn my life the thing is there, and I will have it. Am I a man to be thwarted?"
Indeed, he was no such a man--only, as I whispered to him, he must, if still he believed in his Geomancer, be very sharp. He would be in his thirty-seventh year by the time he set foot on English ground again.
"Ay, ay," says he, while he took a great drink from his cup and passed it to me, "and so I shall, But before the thirty-seventh year is gone, I shall be back again--and you shall be with me, Nick, an' you will."
For myself 'twas very easy to say I would come. If James was king now, then he would have for officers of his ships all those who had served him when he was a sailor, and never had I been one of those. Moreover, I had no interest with either Edward Russell--who is now as I write Earl of Orford--or with Rooke, both of whom were like to be the King's great seamen; so that there was little enough likelihood that I should get another ship. There were just now hundreds of worthy sailors waiting for appointments, and I had no better chance than, if as good as, they. Also was I gone my time, having been now at sea since 1656, when I went a boy of eight, so that I was nigh forty years of age, and was never like now to be a captain, being but a plain sailor and no gentleman courtier or page of honour. Had I been that and not known the maintruck from the keel, then, perhaps, might I have gotten a ship at twenty. But enough of this, only I had a mind to come out with Phips if he came again as an adventurer; and that we should see when we got home.