“Well, Moses,” I began, “this affair is over, and we’ve the Atlantic before us again, with all the ports of Europe to select from, and a captain, one mate, the cook, and one man to carry the ship where we please to take her.”

“Ay, ay—­’t has been a bad job, this last.  I was as sure of them lads, until the lieutenant fired his musket, as ever I was of a good land-fall with a fair wind.  I can’t describe to you, Miles, the natur’ of the disapp’intment I felt, when I saw ’em give up.  I can best compare it to that which came over me, when I discovered I was nothing but a bloody hermit, after all my generalizing about being a governor and a lord high admiral of an island, all to myself, as it might be.”

“It can’t be helped, and we must take things as we find them.  The question is, what is to be done with the ship?  Should we venture into the channel, yonder chaps will be after us with the news of a Yankee, on board of whom they put a prize-crew, being adrift without the men; and there are fifty cruisers ready to pick us up.  The news will spread all over the channel in a week, and our chances of getting through the Straits of Dover will be so small as not to be worth naming:  nay, these fellows will soon repair damages, and might possibly overtake us themselves.  The Speedy is only half-crippled.”

“I see—­I see.  You’ve a trick with you, Miles, that makes a few words go a great way.  I see, and I agree.  But an idee has come to my mind, that you’re welcome to, and after turning it over, do what you please with it.  Instead of going to the eastward of Scilly, what say you to passing to the westward, and shaping our course for the Irish Channel?  The news will not follow us that-a-way, for some time; and we may meet with some American, or other, bound to Liverpool.  Should the worst come to the worst, we can pass through between Ireland and Scotland, and work our way round Cape Wrath, and go into our port of destination.  It is a long road, I know, and a hard one in certain seasons of the year, but it may be travelled in midsummer, comfortably enough.”

“I like your notion well enough, Marble, and am ready to carry it out, as far as we are able.  It must be a hard fortune, indeed, that will not throw us in the way of some fisherman, or coaster, who will be willing to let us have a bend or two, for double wages.”

“Why, on that p’int, Miles, the difficulty is in the war, and the hot press that must now be going.  The English will be shy in visiting the opposite coast; and good men are hard to find, just now, I’m thinking, floating about the coasts of England, unless they are under a pennant.”

“A hand, or two, that can steer, will be an immense relief to us, Moses, even though unable to go aloft.  Call Neb to the wheel, then, and we’ll go look at the chart, so as to lay our course.”