Then Gervase told his whole story soberly and plainly, without colour or exaggeration, but with such truth and effect that his hearer was so lost in admiration that he never interrupted him till he had drawn his tale to a close. Then he swore many oaths, but swearing with such honest and kindly feeling that Gervase forgave him, that such brave fellows were worth putting their lives in peril for, even if it did not profit His Majesty a farthing. And then he questioned Gervase searchingly, his eye scanning him narrowly all the time, about the forts between the city and the castle of Culmore, and where the cannon were posted and what was the weight of the guns. “Now,” he said, in conclusion, “get you back with Andrew Douglas, who is an honest man and a good mariner, and you´ll see what you will see. If there should be a little more wind and more northing in it, I´ll stake my reputation we´ll try of what strength yon timbers are, and you and I will get our share of the glory! Glory, lad! That stirs the blood. That thought about the long boats was a shrewd one, and I have an idea of my own about the way to draw their teeth at Culmore.”
Douglas was waiting for Gervase in the boat of the Phoenix, and welcomed him with a grim smile as he took his place beside him. He said nothing, but motioned to the two sailors to push off and row to the brig. When they got out of earshot, he burst into a hoarse cackle of laughter that grated unpleasantly on Gervase´s overstrung nerves.
“I wouldn´t have missed it,” he cried, clapping his brown hands on his knees, “for a puncheon of rum. Man, ye gave it to him finely, and ye talked like a book straight up and down. A good wholesail breeze all the way and lying your course as straight as an arrow. It did my heart good to hear you. And he couldn´t get in a word--never a word, but stared at you out of his red bulging eyes, and choked about the jaws like a turkey cock strangling in a passion. You´re a well plucked one and no mistake. I had thought to see you, as he said, at the end of the yard-arm.”
“Yon swaggering bully is an arrant coward,” said Gervase, “and I wonder how he came to be chosen for a work like this. For all his bluster I saw that he was quailing, and I was determined that he should hear the truth for once in his life.”
“He didn´t hear a third of it, but I´m thinking he heard as much as was good for him. Will they move, think ye?”
“Leake says----”
“He´s a man at any rate; I´d like to know what he says.”
“That we´ll see what we´ll see. He thinks my speech hath done little harm, but I know not whether it hath done any good. God grant that it hath.”
“Amen and Amen to that. Now let us go aboard, and let us see whether your adventure has taken away your appetite.”