“Where is Captain Greaves?”
“On deck, master. We have been chased, but aint we dropping her nicely, though! Ah! She’s that size on the sea now,” said he, holding up his hand, “and at two o’clock we could count her guns.”
“This is a fast brig then?”
“She’s all legs, master.”
“What are you?”
“I’m the capt’n’s servant and cabin boy.”
“What’s the name of your mate?”
“Yawcob Van Laar.”
“A Dutchman?” said I; and then I remembered having read in the paper that this brig had been purchased or chartered by a Dutch merchant of Amsterdam, so that it was likely enough she would carry some Dutch folk among her crew. “Are you all Dutch?”
“No, master. There be Wirtz, Galen, Hals, and Bol; them four, they be Dutch. And there be Friend, Street, Meehan, Travers, Teach, Call, and me; Irish and English, master.”