“Well, well, Master Verner, I am bound to believe you; and as night comes on we will have the men armed and on the watch. Still, I rather think it will come to nothing; but, as you observe, it is well to be prepared.”
The crew were all Englishmen—twenty stout fellows; and, with well-sharpened hangers in their hands and a supply of pikes, I hoped they would have no difficulty in keeping any assailants out of the ship. I told them that there might be a chance of that sort of thing, and they all expressed their readiness to defend the ship to the last. I mentioned to the captain what I had done.
“Oh yes,” he said, “my dogs will fight well; there is no fear of that. We were once attacked near the Straits of Gibraltar by a Salee rover; and although the villains outnumbered my crew as three to one, yet we beat them off, even though many of them had already gained our deck. We shall treat these fellows in the same way, depend on that, whoever they are.”
A’Dale exerted himself so energetically, that before dark all the goods were on board and safely stowed away. An officer of the Customs having brought us our clearance papers, as soon as the tide served we were able to sail. Having still some daylight, and hoping thus to avoid the threatened attack, we immediately got under weigh, and dropped down the river. The night, however, becoming cloudy and dark, and the wind being contrary, we were once more obliged to bring up.
“If the pirates come to look for us, they will find us gone,” observed Captain Davis, as we sat at supper round the cabin-table.
“But if they intended to attack us, depend upon it they were on the watch,” observed A’Dale, “and know where we are as well as they did before.”
I agreed with A’Dale that we ought to keep a strict watch, as we had intended. Captain Davis, I observed, as sailors are too apt to do, made light of the danger of which we had warned him.
“They will think twice before they attack the Diamond, depend on that, young masters,” he answered to our remarks.
As A’Dale and I had been up since daybreak, and actively engaged all the time, both of us felt very sleepy. Yet we were far too anxious willingly to go to sleep. Without taking off our clothes, therefore, we threw ourselves down in our bedplaces in the after-cabin, hoping that we should be awakened by the slightest noise. We kept our swords by our sides, ready for instant action. The captain, however, laughed at us for our anxiety.
“Don’t be alarmed, my young masters,” he observed, in a somewhat taunting tone; “if we are attacked, we shall be able to give a good account of the villains, without having to call you up, so you might have taken off your clothes and gone to sleep comfortably.”