"And are all your mighty words to go for nothing, Master Dogvane? How about my honour? How about my honour?" said the Buccaneer sorrowfully.
"Honour, sir!" replied Dogvane. "Honour! what is honour that you should shed human blood over it? It is but a breath that comes from the mouths of other people, and the same mouth is as ready to damn as bless. This honour, what is it? It is here to-day, it is gone to-morrow, and is hunted often to death by envy, hatred, and malice, until in the end it is handed over to the tender mercies of its adversary shame. This self same honour that is so much lauded, is a picker of quarrels, a shedder of blood, a vain boaster, and a veritable swashbuckler. This honour is the veriest bubble that man ever fought for, or prated about, and it has done more mischief in the world than any other of man's vain causes of strife; because no principle has been so plentifully abused, except, perhaps, the principle of religion. For this self same honour, or its shadow, you have sacrificed countless thousands of your own sons, and slaughtered countless thousands of other people's. For the sake of this honour you have burdened yourself with a debt that you will carry with you to your grave and it will bend your back, more and more each day you live. God grant that in the end it does not crush you beneath its weight. We will place this matter in the hands of others who will arbitrate between you and the Eastern Bandit, who, I cannot but think, is grossly maligned. This, good master, will be a more humane, a more civilised, and a more Christian method of settling your dispute."
During this harangue of Dogvane's the spirits of the Buccaneer kept on falling and falling until despair sat heavily at his heart. There was something quite pathetic in his bearing as he said: "Master Dogvane, I do not wish to be better than my neighbours. They are all Christians, and yet they all fight. Madame France is armed to the teeth. My German cousin sleeps in armour always, with one eye open. Then, why should I hang up my sword, pistols and buckler and resent neither rebuke, insult, nor injury? In such a matter as this, is it wise to trust to a third party?"
"Master, what does your religion teach you? Be you the pioneer of a better state of things. God knows we have had fighting enough."
"I wish my old coxswain were here," said the Buccaneer. "This is an occasion when his advice would come in well." Perhaps, had he been present he might have told his master that he had better turn monk at once and start a monastery if he intended to follow the advice of the captain of the watch. Why, you ask, did not this fighting, hard swearing, and hard drinking old sea king whip out his hanger and go in at the Bandit himself?
Good people all, it must be remembered, that he now conducted his business on purely constitutional principles, and he would have violated some one or many of these had he so acted. So wedded was he to his constitution that it is probable he would have preferred to be utterly ruined by sticking to it, than saved by going in any way against it. He was a great stickler for routine, red tape, and custom. They, for the time, left the Eastern Bandit in the full enjoyment of his actions. Dogvane broke the silence. "Sir," he said, "I have in my mind's eye a worthy potentate who may, for a small consideration, be induced to serve you in this dispute you have with the Eastern Bandit. King Hokeepokeewonkeefum—"
"What!" exclaimed the Buccaneer, in surprise.
"Does the length of the name astonish you, sir? We have near neighbours whose names, were they all joined together, far exceed the one just mentioned. All great and illustrious people have long names; but they are all capable of contraction. King Hokee, sir, as we will for brevity call him."
"What!" exclaimed the Buccaneer again, almost breathless with amazement. "Entrust my affairs to a black?" There was an adjective used, but for various reasons it has not been recorded.
"Surely, sir," replied Dogvane, "you are above the prejudice of colour. Though black, King Hokee has no doubt a mind particularly free from prejudice. Is he not a man and a brother? Besides, sir, to borrow somewhat from perhaps a greater William than myself: Hath not King Hokee eyes? Hath he not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? If he has not I have no official information on the subject. Is he not fed by the same food, hurt by the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as we are? If you prick King Hokee, think you he will not bleed? If you tickle him, will he not laugh? If you poison him, will he not die?"