“I think so, too. Call Mr Porpoise,” said I.
Porpoise jumped on deck with his coat off, and a hairbrush in each hand, to look at her.
“I couldn’t swear to her; but she is the same build and look of craft as our piratical friend,” he answered. “Hang it! I wish that we had come in an hour or two sooner; we might have just nabbed her. As it is, I fear, before we can have time to get the power from the proper authorities to stop her, she will be far away, and laughing at us. At all events, there is not a moment to be lost.”
By this time all hands were on deck, looking at the Greek brig; but all were not agreed as to her being the pirate. However, the gig was lowered, and we pulled on shore, to hurry up as fast as we could to the governor’s palace, to make our report, and to get him to stop the brig before she got out of the harbour.
Landing among empty casks and bales on the sandy shore, we hurried up Nix Mangiari Stairs, greatly to the detriment of Porpoise’s conversational powers, and then on to the residence of the governor, once the palace of the Grand Master of the far-famed Knights of Malta; a huge square structure, imposing for its size, rather than for the beauty of its architecture. The governor was within, and without delay we were ushered through a magnificent suite of rooms into his presence. He received us politely, but raised his eyebrows at the account of our adventure with the pirate, and seemed to insinuate that yachting gentlemen might be apt to be mistaken, and that we had perhaps after all only found a mare’s-nest.
“But, hang it, sir,” exclaimed Hearty, “the villain fired into us as fast as he could; and that gentleman, Mr Bubble, and several of my people, were hit. There was no fancy in that, I imagine.”
“Ah, I see; that alters the case,” said the governor. “We will send and stop the brig; but understand, that you will have to prove that she is the vessel which fired into you; and, if she is not, you must be answerable for the consequences.”
“By all manner of means,” sung out Hearty. “I suppose the consequences won’t be very dreadful.”
“Hang the consequences,” he exclaimed, as soon afterwards we were left to ourselves, to await the report from the telegraph-station. “I cannot bear to hear these official gentlemen babbling of consequences when rogues are to be punished, and honest men protected. A thing must be either right or wrong. If it’s right, do it—if it’s wrong, let it alone. I hate the red-tape system which binds our rulers from beginning to end. We must break through it, and that pretty quickly, or Old England will come to an end.”
We were all ready enough to argue with Hearty in this matter, though the said breaking through an old deep-rooted system is more easy to propose than to carry into effect.