“Dolly hadn’t told you?”

“Dolly tell me!” exclaimed his Lordship, scornfully.  “She was in a state to tell me nothing the morning I left, save only to bring you to England alive, and repeat it over and over.  But to return to your captain,—­he, too, was taken all aback.  But presently he whipt out my name, and I his, without the Jones.  And when I told him my errand, he wept on my neck, and said he had obtained unlimited leave of absence for you from the Paris commissioners.  He took me up into a private room in the fort, where you were; and the surgeon, who was there at the time, said that your chances were as slim as any man’s he had ever seen.  Faith, you looked it, my lad.  At sight of your face I took one big gulp, for I had no notion of getting you back to her.  And rather than come without you, and look into her eyes, I would have drowned myself in the Straits of Dover.

“Despite the host of troubles he had on his hands, your commodore himself came with us to Rotterdam.  Now I protest I love that man, who has more humanity in him than most of the virtuous people in England who call him hard names.  If you could have seen him leaning over you, and speaking to you, and feeling every minute for your heart-beats, egad, you would have cried.  And when I took you off to the schooner, he gave me an hundred directions how to care for you, and then his sorrow bowled him all in a heap.”

“And is the commodore still at the Texel?” I asked, after a space.

“Ay, that he is, with our English cruisers thick as gulls outside’ waiting for a dead fish.  But he has spurned the French commission they have offered him, saying that of the Congress is good enough for him.  And he declares openly that when he gets ready he will sail out in the Alliance under the Stars and Stripes.  And for this I honour him,” added he, “and Charles honours him, and so must all Englishmen honour him when they come to their senses.  And by Gads life, I believe he will get clear, for he is a marvel at seamanship.”

“I pray with all my heart that he may,” said I, fervently.

“God help him if they catch him!” my Lord exclaimed.  “You should see the bloody piratical portraits they are scattering over London.”

“Has the risk you ran getting me into England ever occurred to you, Jack?” I asked, with some curiosity.

“Faith, not until the day after we got back, Richard,” says he, “when I met Mr. Attorney General on the street.  ’Sdeath, I turned and ran the other way like the devil was after me.  For Charles Fox vows that conscience makes cowards of the best of us.”

“So that is some of Charles’s wisdom!” I cried, and laughed until I was forced to stop from pain.

“Come, my hearty,” says Jack, “you owe me nothing for fishing you out of Holland—­that is her debt.  But I declare that you must one day pay me for saving her for you.  What! have I not always sworn that she loved you?  Did I not pull you into the coffee-room of the Star and Garter years ago, and tell you that same?”