Simpson and Hall exchanged glances and smiled. The captain saw this and his eyes flashed with a more dangerous light.
“You are inciting to mutiny in the face of the enemy,” said he, still in the same cold, even voice. “And that is punishable by death.”
The two men started, and the smiles fled from their faces.
“I order you to your stations and expect you to carry out my orders to the letter. At the slightest sign of disinclination upon your part to do so, I’ll clap you in irons and take you to France for trial before the commissioners. To your posts, gentlemen.”
The two officers, pale of face and furtive-eyed, went to their places at the batteries as commanded. John Paul Jones followed them with his eyes for a moment. Then he said to Wallingford, who had stood by ready to support him in case of need,
“Mr. Wallingford, have the bos’en pipe all hands.”
The hoarse call rang through the ship and all the seamen stood at attention. The commander spoke to them from his quarter-deck.
“Men of the Ranger,” he said, “on this cruise we have taken many prizes and struck some good blows. We have made the British government fear us as it never feared ship before. But they have resolved to take us; they have said that we do not dare to stand and fight their armed ships man to man and gun for gun. The world has heard this, or at least that part of it which we care about; the young republic of the west is waiting to hear of the deeds of the ships which she sent to defy Britain in her own seas.”
There was a visible stirring among the men; for the greater part they were mercenary mariners, men of many nations who had shipped for the booty alone; but there were many Yankees among them, and these felt the appeal of their chief.
“Shall it be said of us that the first vessel of equal strength which we have met has daunted us?”