.

"I cannot explain to you, sir. The consequences--I might mitigate them
for you--still you must risk them." He broke off and appealed to me. "I
would rather you did not insist: I would indeed! I must beg of you, sir,
not to press it."

"But I do press it," I answered, stubborn as a mule. "I tell you that I
am ready to accept all risks. But if you want me to return with my
friends in the cutter, you must summon your crew to pitch me down the
ladder. And there's the end on't."

"Dear, dear! Tell me at least, sir, that you are an unmarried man."

"Up to now I have that misfortune." I aimed a bow at Mistress Susannah;
but that lady had turned her broad shoulders, and it missed fire. "Which
reminds me," I continued, "to ask for the favour of pen, ink, and paper.
I wish to send a letter ashore, to the mail."

She invited me to follow her; and I descended to the main cabin, a
spick-and-span apartment, where we surprised two passably good-looking
damsels at their housework, the one polishing a mahogany swing-table,
the other a brass door-handle. They picked up their cloths, dropped me a
curtsy apiece, and disappeared at a word from Susannah, who bade me be
seated at the swing-table and set writing materials before me. The room
was lit by a broad stern-window, and lined along two of its sides with
mahogany doors leading, as I supposed, to sleeping cabins: the
panels--not to speak of the brass handles and finger-plates--shining so
that a man might have seen his face in them, to shave by. "But why all
these women on board a privateer?" thought I, as I tried a quill on my
thumb-nail, and embarked upon my first love-letter.

"DEAREST,--This line with my devotion to tell you that the balloon
has descended safely, and your Anne finds himself on board...."

"By the way, Miss Susannah, what is the name of this ship?"

"She is called the _Lady Nepean_; and I am a married woman and the
mother of six."

"I felicitate you, madam." I bowed, and resumed my writing:

"... the _Lady Nepean_ packet, outward bound from Falmouth to...."

--"Excuse me, but where the dickens are we bound for?"

"For the coast of Massachusetts, I believe."

"You believe?"

She nodded. "Young man, if you'll take my advice, you'll go back."

"Madam," I answered, on the sudden impulse, "I am an escaped French
prisoner." And with that, having tossed my cap over the mills (as they
say), I leaned back in the settee, and we regarded each other.