Many hands make light work, and the spars were all right by the next sunrise. There was only one sail in sight when Captain Morgan came on deck from a visit below to all his wounded men.
"That's the Lynx," he thought. "We must get within hail of her and find out how Taber's gettin' on. I don't even know what her cargo is. The way Lyme Avery carried her's a wonder!"
So Captain Taber was thinking at that very hour, as he went from gun to gun of the old Indiaman's batteries.
"All she wanted was men," he said, "and she'd ha' beaten us, easy. We must have that thirty-two pounder pivot-gun in order, first thing. I'll make a strong cruiser of her. I've a gang overhaulin' the cargo. It promises well, and there's more'n thirty thousand dollars in cash.—Oh! but ain't I sick about Lyme! Best kind o' feller! Best neighbor! Best sailor, too. He and I sailed three long v'yages together, and we never had an ill word on sea or land."
Every other man of the dead captain's crew was saying or thinking something of the sort, and it was a blue time in spite of the victory. The excitement was all over now, and even the most reckless could calculate somewhat the dangers which still remained between them and home.
Captain Ellis himself came up to the deck of the ship which he had ceased to command, for there was no reason for confining him below. He found that more than half his crew had volunteered to do ordinary ship-duty, at regular pay, rather than be shut up under hatches. The remainder, however, were stubborn Britons, and refused to handle so much as a rope under a rebel flag.
"They can't do us any harm," Captain Taber had said of the volunteers. "I'll trust 'em. Besides, every man of 'em's Irish, and there's mighty little love o' King George that side o' the Channel."
At all events, all of these sailor sons of Erin went to their messes cheerfully that morning.
"Captain Taber," said Ellis, when they came together, "I never saw anything like it! Look, yonder! Your schooner's refitted! She's as taut and trim as ever!"
"She has half a dozen good ship carpenters on board," laughed Taber. "They could build her over again. Our shipyards are goin' to bring out some new p'ints on ship-buildin'."