After which they set to work to overhaul their maiden prize, which they found full of hides and salt-pork; and yet not of that alone; for in the captain’s cabin, and also in the sternsheets of the boat which Brimblecombe had so valorously boarded, were certain frails of leaves packed neatly enough, which being opened were full of goodly pearls, though somewhat brown (for the Spaniards used to damage the color in their haste and greediness, opening the shells by fire, instead of leaving them to decay gradually after the Arabian fashion); with which prize, though they could not guess its value very exactly, they went off content enough, after some malicious fellow had set the ship on fire, which, being laden with hides, was no nosegay as it burnt.

Amyas was very angry at this wanton damage, in which his model, Drake, had never indulged; but Cary had his jest ready.  “Ah!” said he, “‘Lutheran devils’ we are, you know; so we are bound to vanish, like other fiends, with an evil savor.”

As soon, however, as Amyas was on board again, he rounded his friend Mr. Brimblecombe in the ear, and told him he had better play the man a little more, roaring less before he was hurt, and keeping his breath to help his strokes, if he wished the crew to listen much to his discourses.  Frank, hearing this, bade Amyas leave the offender to him, and so began upon him with—­

“Come hither, thou recreant Jack, thou lily-livered Jack, thou hysterical Jack.  Tell me now, thou hast read Plato’s Dialogues, and Aristotle’s Logic?”

To which Jack very meekly answered, “Yes.”

“Then I will deal with thee after the manner of those ancient sages, and ask whether the greater must not contain the less?”

Jack.  Yes, sure.

Frank.  And that which is more than a part, contain that part, more than which it is?

Jack.  Yes, sure.

Frank.  Then tell me, is not a priest more than a layman?

Jack (who was always very loud about the dignity of the priesthood, as many of his cloth are, who have no other dignity whereon to stand) answered very boldly, “Of course.”

Frank.  Then a priest containeth a man, and is a man, and something over—­viz, his priesthood?

Jack (who saw whither this would lead).  I suppose so.

Frank.  Then, if a priest show himself no man, he shows himself all the more no priest?

“I’ll tell you what, Master Frank,” says Jack, “you may be right by logic; but sharks aren’t logic, nor don’t understand it neither.”

Frank.  Nay but, my recalcitrant Jack, my stiff-necked Jack, is it the part of a man to howl like a pig in a gate, because he thinks that is there which is not there?

Jack had not a word to say.

Frank.  And still more, when if that had been there, it had been the duty of a brave man to have kept his mouth shut, if only to keep salt water out, and not add the evil of choking to that of being eaten?