The British campaign and its intended consequences were thoroughly discussed by the New England people, and a considerable number of them very promptly determined to visit their friends in Albany or in Vermont.
The shore people were deeply interested, for, in addition to all other considerations, their entire sea-going fleet was at stake. No more British prizes would then be brought, for instance, to Boston or New London, and all the privateers at sea would be hopelessly forfeited to the crown. All their prizes in European ports would share the same fate. One, however, was now on its homeward way in charge of Vine Avery, promoted from third mate to skipper. He was handling his ship very well, but he as yet knew very little about her cargo. His orders were to let the taking account of that wait until he should be safe in port.
"The main thing," he had been told by his father, "is to git there. You've a gantlet to run that's thousands o' miles long, and your chances are only jest about even."
"I'll make 'em a good deal more'n even!" Vine had replied, and he had sailed away full confidently.
Three days after the Noank and the Killarney parted company, there was a great stir in a fishing village on the Irish coast. A strange schooner was tacking into the cove in front of the village, and such a thing as that did not happen every day. All the cabins were emptied at once. Even the babies, of which there seemed to be a large number, were carried to the shore by their mothers that they might not lose this chance to see something.
The schooner furled her sails, and dropped her anchor, while her probable or improbable character was undergoing vigorous discussion all along the beach. Not a soul on board the Noank, among her crew, at least, could have understood the primitive Erse dialect in which the fisher people told their opinions of her and the boat-loads of men and women that were quickly put out from her toward the shore. More and more extraordinary became the clatter after the passengers were landed and the boats pulled away for their next cargoes. Trip after trip was made, and all the while there was a vast amount of kindly pity expressed, most of it in Erse, but much in Irish-English, for Captain Syme and all his miscellaneous ship's company. Quite an erroneous opinion appeared to prevail that the American pirates had murdered all their captives entirely before landing them.
Here they were, now, however, not a hair of their heads injured, and Captain Syme even thanked Captain Avery, the privateersman, for having treated him and his so very well.
"We shall find our way to Belfast, sir," he said. "Just how we are to transport them all, I don't know, but the neighboring authorities will take care of that. I shall have them notified at once. You'd better look out for yourself."
"All right," laughed Captain Avery, "but I'm less afraid of a constable than I would be of a three-master with two tiers of guns. Not many o' them in shore, I guess."
Captain Syme had his hands full, he said, and away he went without uttering aloud the reply that was so near his lips: "Three-master? Yes, you rebel pirate! A seventy-four and you and your schooner within point-blank range!"