"You may have him," he was told, and several of the officers present expressed their great regret that so many impressed American seamen had been ironed by Captain Avery and compelled to escape from a return to man-of-war duty. They ought never to have been detailed, it was asserted.
"We can't hang 'em for desertion," they said, half jocularly. "All we could do, if we caught them, would be to set them at work again."
Nevertheless, four of these escaped men were now voluntarily among the crew of the Noank. The remaining five had preferred to make the best of their ways to their several homes. Not one of them all had chosen to seek the friendly shelter of the British navy, so near and so ready to receive them.
Luke Watts and his friends were dismissed and went on deck. Shortly afterward, their own longboat carried them to the Termagant troop-ship, and the first words uttered by the Marblehead skipper after reaching her, were duly reported to his superiors.
"Men!" he had exclaimed, as he glanced around him. "This thing isn't fit to go to sea. She's been handled by lubbers. We've work before us, if we don't want to go to the bottom or be overhauled by the Yankees. Jest look at her spars and riggin'!"
All things were working together, therefore, to strengthen the confidence reposed in him, in spite of the curious fact that he had skilfully delivered the Windsor and her cargo in New London instead of in New York.
"We had a narrer escape not many miles beyond Hell Gate," he had reported. "One o' those Long Island buccaneer whaleboats chased us more 'n an hour. They gave it up then, and we got through. 'Twas a close shave. Half on 'em are Montauk and Shinnecock redskins. Reg'lar scalpers."
He had told the truth, as he had appeared to do at every point of the account which he had given of himself, and now the very men who had captured him and let him go, neglecting to hang him, were about to learn why that Long Island whaleboat had not followed him any farther. There had been plenty of time for such a boat to get away, a long distance.
The lookout on the rampart of Fort Griswold, the same keen-eyed watcher who had sent warning to the Noank of the danger in the offing, was busy with his telescope.
"The cruiser's a brig!" he sang out. "I can make her out, now. She's one o' the new patterns. She's chasin' a whaleboat. I wish she'd roller it onto one o' them there ledges. She's firin'. It's long range, but it looks kind o' bad for the Long Islanders. There ain't any of our boats out, to-day. It's from t'other shore."