John Gore looked at them all a little sadly, like a man who must speak bad news. He had picked up Jasper’s pipe, and was tracing an imaginary pattern on the table. The sailors would have sworn that it was a love-knot had they been able to see inside the captain’s head.
“Don’t tempt me, Jasper, my man; when you go to sea again, it won’t be under my flag.”
Bluntly, yet with a great kindness for them that could not be hid, he blew to the winds all Jasper’s visions of judgment. Not for a year at least would he sail on a second voyage. The big man regarded him sorrowfully, as though listening to the news of a Dutch victory. The sailors looked at one another and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. A pipe was tapped softly, even dismally, on the heel of a sea-boot. One worthy could find no other method of expression than that of firing a stream of tobacco juice into a pile of sawdust in a corner.
They were like so many dismasted hulks with the spirit out of them, so many disappointed children. Jasper’s enthusiasm broke into a last flare.
“Such a little dancing devil, captain, and her guns all like new pins. She ought to carry you, and no one else.”
The man in the red coat still drew patterns on the table.
“Look you, my men, don’t count on serving under me; I am high and dry for a year or more. You are too tough to rot here in taverns. My business is to see good men of mine afloat in a good ship.”
“That’s like you, captain.”
“We did not fight the Sparhawk for nothing, did we? You served me well; I mean to serve you. Will you go to sea as picked men in a King’s ship?”
Jasper looked at his mates, first over one shoulder and then over the other.