At length Goffe broke silence.—“You are welcome aboard, Captain Cleveland.—Smash my taffrail! I suppose you think yourself commodore yet! but that was over, by G—, when you lost your ship, and be d—d!”
And here, once for all, we may take notice, that it was the gracious custom of this commander to mix his words and oaths in nearly equal proportions, which he was wont to call shotting his discourse. As we delight not, however, in the discharge of such artillery, we shall only indicate by a space like this ---- the places in which these expletives occurred; and thus, if the reader will pardon a very poor pun, we will reduce Captain Goffe’s volley of sharp-shot into an explosion of blank cartridges. To his insinuations that he was come on board to assume the chief command, Cleveland replied, that he neither desired, nor would accept, any such promotion, but would only ask Captain Goffe for a cast of the boat, to put him ashore in one of the other islands, as he had no wish either to command Goffe, or to remain in a vessel under his orders.
“And why not under my orders, brother?” demanded Goffe, very austerely; “— — — are you too good a man, — — — with your cheese-toaster and your jib there, — — to serve under my orders, and be d—d to you, where there are so many gentlemen that are elder and better seamen than yourself?”
“I wonder which of these capital seamen it was,” said Cleveland, coolly, “that laid the ship under the fire of yon six-gun battery, that could blow her out of the water, if they had a mind, before you could either cut or slip? Elder and better sailors than I may like to serve under such a lubber, but I beg to be excused for my own share, Captain—that’s all I have got to tell you.”
“By G—, I think you are both mad!” said Hawkins the boatswain—“a meeting with sword and pistol may be devilish good fun in its way, when no better is to be had; but who the devil that had common sense, amongst a set of gentlemen in our condition, would fall a quarrelling with each other, to let these duck-winged, web-footed islanders have a chance of knocking us all upon the head?”
“Well said, old Hawkins!” observed Derrick the quarter-master, who was an officer of very considerable importance among these rovers; “I say, if the two captains won’t agree to live together quietly, and club both heart and head to defend the vessel, why, d—n me, depose them both, say I, and choose another in their stead!”
“Meaning yourself, I suppose, Master Quarter-Master!” said Jack Bunce; “but that cock won’t fight. He that is to command gentlemen, should be a gentleman himself, I think; and I give my vote for Captain Cleveland, as spirited and as gentleman-like a man as ever daffed the world aside, and bid it pass!”
“What! you call yourself a gentleman, I warrant!” retorted Derrick; “why, —— your eyes! a tailor would make a better out of the worst suit of rags in your strolling wardrobe!—It is a shame for men of spirit to have such a Jack-a-dandy scarecrow on board!”
Jack Bunce was so incensed at these base comparisons, that without more ado, he laid his hand on his sword. The carpenter, however, and boatswain, interfered, the former brandishing his broad axe, and swearing he would put the skull of the first who should strike a blow past clouting, and the latter reminding them, that, by their articles, all quarrelling, striking, or more especially fighting, on board, was strictly prohibited; and that, if any gentleman had a quarrel to settle, they were to go ashore, and decide it with cutlass and pistol in presence of two of their messmates.
“I have no quarrel with any one, — — —!” said Goffe, sullenly; “Captain Cleveland has wandered about among the islands here, amusing himself, — — —! and we have wasted our time and property in waiting for him, when we might have been adding twenty or thirty thousand dollars to the stock-purse. However, if it pleases the rest of the gentlemen-adventurers, — — —! why, I shall not grumble about it.”