n such submission,
which he flatly refused to pay, alleging that he had already compelled
his enemy to clap on all sails, and that his own present misfortune was
owing to accident; all one as if a ship should be attacked, after she
had been obliged to heave her guns overboard in a storm.

Before Peregrine had time to answer this remonstrance, the lieutenant
interposed, and taking cognizance of the case, established a truce,
until he and the other second should discuss and decide upon the merits
of the case. They accordingly retired to a small distance; and after
having conferred a few minutes, Hatchway returned and pronounced the
commodore vanquished by the chance of war.

Never was rage more than that which took possession of old Hannibal,
when he heard the sentence: it was some time before he could utter
aught, except the reproachful expression, "You lie!" which he repeated
more than twenty times, in a sort of delirious insensibility. When he
recovered the further use of speech, he abused the arbitrators with such
bitter invectives, renouncing their sentence, and appealing to another
trial, that the confederates began to repent of having carried the joke
so far; and Peregrine, in order to appease his choler, owned himself
overcome.

This acknowledgment calmed the tumult of his wrath, though he could not
for some days forgive the lieutenant; and the two young gentlemen rode
back to Tunley's, while Hatchway, taking the commodore's horse by the
bridle, reconducted him to his mansion, growling all the way to Jack for
his unjust and unfriendly decree; though he could not help observing,
as how he had made his words good, in making his adversary to strike his
top-sails: "And yet," said he, "before God! I think the fellow's head is
made of a wood-pack: for my shot rebounded from his face like a wad of
spun-yarn from the walls of a ship. But if so be that son of a b-- of
a tree hadn't come athwart my weather-bow, d'ye see, I'll be d--d if
I hadn't snapt his main-yard in the slings, and mayhap let out his
bulge-water into the bargain." He seemed particularly vain of this
exploit, which dwelt upon his imagination, and was cherished as the
child of his old age; for though he could not with decency rehearse
it to the young men and his wife at supper, he gave hints of his own
manhood, even at these years, and attested Hatchway as a voucher for his
mettle; while the triumvirate, diverted by his vanity, enjoyed in secret
the succ