“It is the Drake, sir; sloop of war.”
“Of how many guns?”
The man looked helplessly at Captain Jones, but one of the sons answered, in a low voice:
“Some says twenty, sir, but I counted twenty-two on ’em when I went aboard to carry my fish.”
“And who commands her?”
“Burden, sir; Cap’n Burden they calls him.”
Paul Jones’s eyes gleamed. No better news could be brought him.
“Very well,” he said, “I shall have to keep you from your families for a few days, but you shall not lose by being my guests.”
Paul Jones’s plans were made rapidly. He was alone, on a hostile coast, with enemies before him, behind him, and around him. None the less did he intend to give battle. Moreover, he knew that he was fighting with a halter around his neck, for there was but little doubt that if he were captured he would be hanged as a pirate, so little were the British then disposed to recognize the navy of the colonies. But this could not appall his dauntless soul. He had the warm support of the best among his officers, and among the men there was an instinctive belief that he was always ready to fight, and nothing so inspires a crew as the knowledge that they have a fighting captain. Bill Green, passing back and forth, remarked, with a wink, to a group of his messmates forward:
“The Cap’n’s goin’ to fight that ’ere Johnny Bull, sure; and I tell you what, them Britishers will have to coil up some o’ their nonsense about there ain’t no sailors except Britishers, and take in their slack about Britannia rulin’ the waves. Something’s goin’ to happen soon, that reminds me of a old song I heard once: