"Listen to the lad!" the people cried and laughed; but no one took up the challenge.
"Well, my mates," cried an old salt, "let us wait and see what comes of it all. For my part I doubt much good, with old Dogvane up there too."
"What can he do, pray, if the old man takes a look for himself?" said another.
"What can he do?" cried Random Jack. "Look here, my hearties; that is a difficult question to answer when old Bill is concerned. For there is little he can't do, and there is not a trick or a dodge that that old fox is not up to. Why, he would get the weather side of the devil himself. Now, listen to me, my lads. Ah! it's all very well for you slavish followers of old Dogvane to put your tongues in your cheeks and flout and jeer, but those laugh in the end who win, and my merriment is yet to come. Now I will tell you what old Dogvane will do. He will make our master look through the wrong end of the telescope, or he will put in coloured lenses, or glasses with pictures painted on them, or he will do something to deceive; and whatever he does his crew will swear it is right, more especially the cook, the carpenter, and the burly butcher; but I have my eyes upon them; and I will smoke them out yet."
People laughed out right at these bold words of the little middy's. Many of the old salts said the boy would grow into no ordinary man, and that if he lived he would achieve great things. This Random Jack fully believed himself; and perseverance as is well known conquers all things. It is only necessary to be constantly dinning into the ears of people our own particular merits, and in time the most obstinate will give in and take you at your own valuation. In no other way can very much of the success we see in the world be accounted for.
If you are an impostor, the course of events may perhaps find you out, but it is hard to overthrow even a humbug when once fully established, and if he is knocked over he is sure to retain some of his followers and believers, who will worship him as a martyr, and he may even finish up by being canonized as a saint.
CHAPTER XIX.
The look-out place at the mast head of the old Ship of State had many names, and amongst the rest it was called the owl's nest. This bird is sagacious looking; but by some people it is considered stupid, though perhaps rats, and mice, and other like vermin, think he is sharp enough for them. From this point of vantage Dogvane was bidding his master to behold the bright things that lay beneath him. "Look around you," he said, "and your eyes will rest upon a beautiful picture; upon fields of golden corn bending their heads ready for the sickle of the reaper; upon pastures well stocked with flocks and herds and upon a contented and a happy people." Just as the Buccaneer was stooping down to adjust his eye to the telescope, Dogvane very deftly slipped in, as the clever little middy had said he would, a slide beautifully painted with rural scenes, for what he had said existed only in his imagination, for a good deal of the land was lying fallow. The Buccaneer seemed lost in wonder and admiration, and was silent; but Dogvane kept talking all the time. Conjurors always do this to distract the attention of their audience, otherwise their imposition might be found out. "Your eyes rest, sir," the captain said, "upon a peaceful scene; no one would think that all those quiet looking villages, with their churches, stand over the bones of dead pirates." The Buccaneer did not like this allusion to his past life so he said:
"Master Dogvane! there are but few men that have not had their early indiscretions. Even the very best of us in looking back wish some things undone. Many a saint has commenced life as a sinner; then let the dead past be buried, and often the greater the sinner the greater the saint. The first public act of Moses was a murder."