try and crack that up, because him who
did it must have been as mad as a hatter, and between ourselves, that's
what I think that Count is."

"Oh, fudge, captain!" cried Rodd. "No more mad than you or I."

"Well, I can answer for myself, my lad," said the skipper, with a
chuckle, "but that's more than I'd do for you, for you do some precious
outrageous things sometimes."

"I?" cried Rodd.

"Yes, you, my lad."

"What a shame!" cried Rodd indignantly. "I defy you to prove that I
have done anything that you could call mad. Now tell me something.
What have you ever known me do that wasn't sensible?"

"Oh, that's soon done," cried the skipper. "Didn't you go and gammon
the soldiers when they were after the escaped French prisoners? Don't
you call that a mad act? Fighting against the laws of your country like
that!"

"Ah, well, I suppose I oughtn't to have helped them, captain; but I
couldn't help it."

"No, sir, and that's what the Frenchmen would say. Now, what in the
world is that chap after, with his mission, as he calls it? What does
he mean by coming rampaging out south with a hole in the bottom of his
brig and the pumps going straight on to keep the water down? Would any
one but a lunatic go risking his crew and his vessel like that?"

"Well, it does seem rather wild," replied Rodd thoughtfully.

"Wild? Well, that's only your way of saying he's stick, stark, staring
mad. And here he's been out weeks and weeks, knowing as he says that
his brig was sinking, when he could have put in at Gib, or the Azores,
or Las Palmas, or brought up in one of the West Coast rivers, where he
could run up on the tidal mud, careened his vessel, and set his ship's
carpenter to work to clap patches upon her bottom outside and in. Don't
you call that mad?"

"No. He might have had reasons for not doing so."

"Ah, that's right, sir; argufy. You young scholarly chaps who have been
to big schools and got your heads chock-full of Latin and Greek, you are
beggars to argufy--chopping logic, I suppose you calls it--and I give
in. You could easily beat me at that; just as easily as I could turn
you round my little finger at navigation. But I'll have one more go at
you; I says that there French Count is mad."

"And I say he is not," said Rodd, "only a brave, eccentric nobleman who
may have a good many more reasons for what he does than we know."

"All right, youngster. I give you my side. Now that's yours. Now,
just