We remained two days longer, and no news came from the Irish friar.
Our prisoners were well supplied with eatables and drinkables and tobacco, and appeared perfectly happy, talking freely among themselves, as they sat at table and smoked their cigarettes. Mr Falconer, though unwilling to be an eavesdropper, could not help hearing what they said, and as he had prudently not let them discover that he knew Spanish, they did not suspect that he understood what they said. He was sitting writing in his own cabin, which opened on the gun-room, when he heard one of them remark that, in a couple of days, at furthest, the tables would be turned, and that those who were now their masters would be prisoners, or hung up at the yard-arms of their frigate.
“Which, pirates as they are, will be their just fate,” observed another. On this, the rest of the party laughed grimly.
“The ladies we cannot hang, though.”
“No; they can be sent to a nunnery, or perhaps you, Seignor Commandant, who are a bachelor, would wish to wed the fat widow.”
Some remarks were made about Miss Kitty, which Mr Falconer did not repeat.
“How soon can the two frigates be here?” inquired another.
“In two days, or three at most,” was the answer. “But we shall be in no slight danger. I wish we could escape before then.”
“No fear about that,” answered one of the former speakers. “The Englishmen won’t attempt to fight against so overpowering a force, and will, depend on it, haul down their flag as soon as they see the two frigates enter the harbour.”
This idea seemed to make the whole party very merry.