“For defending my good name, I mean. I have had many enemies, my lad, and few friends; it is comforting to think that I have gained a new one.”
“I should think,” said Ethan, after a pause, “that one like you would have no lack of friends. There is not an American worthy of the title but what pronounces the name of John Paul Jones with admiration. You are known in every hamlet and town throughout the colonies; your deeds upon the sea in the cause of liberty are upon every lip.”
The moody captain smiled and patted his young companion upon the shoulder kindly.
“It’s kind of you to say this; and I appreciate it all the more because I know that you mean it. But fame does not always bring content, my boy, nor friends. Two years ago I should have been proud of the command of a ship like this, now I aspire to command fleets; and then, again, I sometimes catch myself wondering if the people who seem glad to grasp the hand of John Paul Jones, victor in some sea fights, would have been equally glad to have greeted plain John Paul, emigrant.”
Ethan shook his head.
“I suppose not,” he answered.
They continued talking in this strain for some time. Longsword came on deck after a time and also began to pace slowly up and down, in the waist. At length the subject shifted to the secret instructions of Congress.
“There does not seem to be any one in the ship,” said Ethan, “who is at all familiar with the Lascar but Blake.”
“And he is not the master mind, that’s sure,” smiled the captain. “Siki is of greater intelligence by far.”
“The man who sent him to steal the secret dispatch is not in the vessel,” decided Ethan, who had thought much upon this point during the run across.