"What in the name of Moll Roe have we here?" he cried.
"It is I, Master Plummer," I answered, and I told him who I was. In my eagerness I must have appeared half crazed, I judge, for he looked at me askance as I grasped him by the arm.
"What are you doing, lad?" he inquired. "And how you've grown!"
In a few words, and in an incoherent fashion, I fear, I told him of my life and my virtual imprisonment. Evidently the explanation that I made set his mind at rest in regard to my sanity.
"Why don't you clear out?" he said. "There's a chance for a fine lad like yourself to the southward. The sea is not far away (how my heart leapt at the word 'sea'!), and there are great goings on there. We've taken their frigates, and given the lion's tail a twist until it is kinked like a fouled hawser."
"What do you mean?" I inquired.
"Hear the lad!" Plummer responded, setting down his bundle and going into the pocket of his jacket and drawing out a newspaper. "There's a war between America and England. I'm just in off the Comet privateer. Listen to this," he said. He slapped his trousers pocket, and it chinked to the sound of gold. "And listen here," he repeated, and he tapped the other side. It jingled musically. "Ho, but we are getting even with them for all their mail-stealing!"
"A war with England!" I cried, taking the paper that had "Victory!" spread across it in large type. "Do you remember Dash, and his hand there on the deck?"
"Ay, like a glove thrown in the face of the King," said the sailor; "and the news of it is about the world."
"Plummer," I said, "sell me some clothes. I'll pay you for them—if you'll wait." I had hidden three or four of the gold pieces under the flat rock. "I will run and fetch you the money," I continued, eagerly.