“The truth is, commodore,” said Decatur, who could not but respect the boy’s indomitable pluck, “Mr. Israel has the courage and spirit of a man, and he forgets that he is, after all, a very young gentleman.” A very young gentleman meant really a boy.
The commodore smiled at this, and looking into Pickle’s disappointed face he said:
“Never mind, Mr. Israel. Although I can not let you go on this expedition, your gallant desire to go has not hurt you in my esteem; and the day will come when your country will be proud of you—of that I feel a presentiment at this moment.”
True it was, and sooner, far sooner than any of them dreamed at that moment.
Pickle turned away, his eyes filled with tears of disappointment. As he was going sadly below, he heard a step following him, and there was Danny Dixon’s hale and handsome face close behind him.
“Mr. Israel, sir,” said Danny, touching his hat, “I wants to say as how I likes your spirit; and when you’re a cap’n you’ll find the men mighty willin’ to sarve under you, sir, for they likes a orficer with a spirit. You oughter been in the fight with Cap’n Paul Jones, on the Bunnum Richard.”
“I wish I had been, Dixon,” answered Pickle, almost crying with vexation.
“Never you mind, Mr. Israel,” said Danny, with an encouraging wink, “all the orficers and men knows you ain’t got no flunk in you; and if you hadn’t been such a little ’un—beg your parding, sir—you’d ’a’ had a chance at somethin’, sure.”
Pickle, not exactly pleased with being called “a little ’un,” marched off in high dudgeon, angry with Danny, with the commodore, with Decatur—with the whole world, in fact, which seemed bent on balking his dreams of glory. However, after an hour or two of bitter reflection, it suddenly occurred to him as a forlorn hope that he might yet ask Somers. As if in answer to his wish, at that very moment he was ordered to take a boat with a message to Somers, saying that at four o’clock—eight bells—a call would be made for volunteers to man the boats.
Pickle swung himself into the boat with the agility of a monkey, and in a few moments the stout arms of the sailors had pulled across the blue water to where the lovely Nautilus lay, rocking gently on the long, summer swells of the sea. Pickle skipped over the side and up to Somers on the deck, like a flash of blue light, in his trim midshipman’s uniform. His message was delivered in a few words, and then Pickle artfully continued: