“Good evening, Winchester,” said Cuffe, in a familiar, friendly way, which satisfied the subordinate that he was not sent for to be ’rattled down’; “draw a chair and try a glass of this Capri wine with some water.  It’s not carrying sail hard to drink a gallon of it; yet I rather think it fills up the chinks better than nothing.”

“Thank’ee, Captain Cuffe, we like it in the gun-room, and got off a fresh cask or two this morning, while the court was sitting.  So they tell me, sir, his lordship has put his name to it, and that this Frenchman is to swing from our fore-yard-arm some time to-morrow?”

“It stands so on paper, Winchester; but if he confess where his lugger lies, all will go smoothly enough with him.  However, as things look now, we’ll have her, and thanks only to ourselves.”

“Well, sir, that will be best, on the whole.  I do not like to see a man selling his own people.”

“There you are right enough, Winchester, and I trust we shall get along without it; though the lugger must be ours.  I sent for you, by the way, about this Bolt—­something must be done with that fellow.”

“It’s a clear case of desertion, Captain Cuffe; and, as it would now seem, of treason in the bargain.  I would rather hang ten such chaps than one man like the Frenchman.”

“Well, it’s clear, Mr. Winchester, you do not bear malice!  Have you forgotten Porto Ferrajo, and the boats, already? or do you love them that despitefully use you?”

“’Twas all fair service, sir, and one never thinks anything of that.  I owe this Monsieur Yvard no grudge for what he did; but, now it’s all fairly over, I rather like him the better for it.  But it’s a very different matter as to this Bolt; a skulking scoundrel, who would let other men fight his country’s battles, while he goes a-privateering against British commerce.”

“Aye, there’s the rub, Winchester! Are they his country’s battles?”

“Why, we took him for an Englishman, sir, and we must act up to our own professions, in order to be consistent.”

“And so hang an innocent man for a treason that he could not commit.”

“Why, Captain Cuffe, do you believe the fellow’s whining story about his being a Yankee?  If that be true, we have done him so much injustice already, as to make his case a very hard one.  For my part I look upon all these fellows as only so many disaffected Englishmen, and treat them accordingly.”

“That is a sure way to quiet one’s feelings, Winchester; but it’s most too serious when it comes to hanging.  If Bolt deserve any punishment, he deserves death; and that is a matter about which one ought to be tolerably certain, before he pushes things too far.  I’ve sometimes had my doubts about three or four of our people’s being Englishmen, after all.”

“There can be no certainty in these matters, unless one could carry a parish register for the whole kingdom in his ship, Captain Cuffe.  If they are not Englishmen, why do they not produce satisfactory proofs to show it?  That is but reasonable, you must allow, sir?”