In a still greater frequency of cases the traveller waited several days at Calais for a fair wind. When it came, the gallant rowers hoisted what they called a sail, stuck an image of the Virgin in the prow of the boat, prayed to it—and became sick like men.
Jack and his faithful attendant, being Britons, and endowed with that peculiar native salt in their veins for which the analytical chemists have as yet found no name, were good sailors. The Fleming and the Lombard were bad ones, and howled dismally at the bottom of the boat. The crew were Frenchmen. No further explanation of their condition is necessary.
When the galley had made about three parts of her course, our hero’s faithful attendant broke silence with—
“Don’t you think now would be about the time, sir?”
“What for?”
“What for! why, to pitch them overboard, of course.”
Falstaff wheeled suddenly round on his seat, and looked his faithful attendant full in the face. There was approval in the scrutiny, mingled with compassion.
“And do you suppose, young man,” the master inquired, with a transparent assumption of severity, “that I am going to be guilty of such an act of treachery?”
“Then what the plague else did you bring ‘em here for?” was the sulky reply. “They’ve got your bonds in their pockets. The sailors are all sick—none of ‘em would be a bit the wiser.”
“Away, tempter!” said Jack, with twinkling eyes. “How dare you lure an innocent youth to his destruction? Avaunt thee, fiend! Vade retro Sathanas!”