“Now, master jackanapes,” said he, returning to his adversary, and catching him by his starched ruff. “You shall follow your sword.”
Then the poor fellow, scared out of his wits, let go a string of oaths, and vowed to heaven he did but jest, and loved us both like his own brothers, and, would Ludar but unhand him, he might count on him as a friend for life, and so forth. Even Ludar could not help laughing at the figure he made; and having lifted him a little on to the gunwale, let him down again with a “get you gone then.”
’Twas wonderful how the gallant’s courage came back as soon as he stood free.
“By my soul,” said he, with a gay laugh, “thou’rt a brave lad, and I like thee for ’t. A jest is like marrow in a dog’s bone, and life without sport is a camel’s track. Come, thou and I shall be friends, I see; and crack more jokes than one ere this voyage be over. And, in sooth, Achilles doth well to make proof now and again of the strength of Hercules. Why, my Hercules, I warrant thou couldest lift that box of mine with thy finger and thumb. I pray thee, for my admiration, see if thou couldest so carry it from where it now lies to my cabin in the poop; and our flying Dutchman here shall be judge that the feat be fairly done.”
Ludar, with a grim smile, owned that he had the worst of this encounter, and made the fellow happy by carrying his box in one hand; although he alarmed him not a little by offering to carry him in the other.
When this little jest was over, the captain came to us with orders to join the crew in making all things ready for presently meeting the sea breezes at the river’s mouth; so we had no more time just then to think of Master Coxcomb.
It moved my admiration to see with what a will Ludar worked at his task. He made no question of the Frenchman’s right to order his services; and methought, as he hauled away cheerily among his ill-favoured messmates, he looked as noble as had he been marching at the head of an army. The ship’s crew was, to tell the truth, a scurvy company. Not counting us, there were but eleven of them, mostly French, who talked and cursed while they worked and three English, who sulked and grumbled. They stared in no friendly way at Ludar and me when we joined them; nor did they like us the better that, without much knowledge or seamanship, we yet put our backs into what we did, and bade them do the same. Ludar, indeed, born to command, was not sparing in his abuse of their laziness; and it vexed me a little to see how he thereby made himself an enemy of every man among them.
Towards nightfall we were all ship-shape, and the watch being set—of which Ludar was one—I had leisure to go below to seek the sleep I sorely needed. I would fain, before doing so, have visited the maiden to satisfy myself that all went well with her. But I durst hardly venture so far without her bidding. I sought my berth below, therefore—and a vile, foul corner of the hold it was—and laid myself down, wondering what would be the end of all this journeying.
There was a sailor—one of the Frenchmen—down beside me, who, when he saw who I was, sat up and began to talk. In a foolish moment I betrayed that I understood some of his French lingo, whereat he—being more than half drunken—waxed civil, and his tongue loosed itself still more.
“Who is she?” he whispered presently, in his foreign tongue.