CHAPTER II

The passenger took his seat in the bow of the boat and stripped off his
coat in readiness to pull an oar. But no oar was offered to him. Maurice
St. Clair seemed to have entirely forgotten the stranger's presence. The
remarks of the American captain had angered him, and his mind worked on
the insults hurled at him in parting. Neal was angry, too. They pulled
viciously at the oars. From time to time Maurice broke out fiercely--

"An unmannerly brute! I wish I had him somewhere off the deck of his
brig. I'd teach him how to speak to a gentleman.

"Is that his filthy tobacco at your feet, Brown-Eyes? Pitch it
overboard.

"I suppose he's a specimen of the Republican breed. That's what comes of
liberty and equality and French Jacobinism and Tom Paine and the Rights
of Man. Damned insolence I call it."

"I'd like to remind you, young man------." The words came with a quiet
drawl from the passenger in the bow.

Maurice stopped rowing, and turned round.

"Well, what do you want to say? More insolence? Better be careful unless
you want to try what it feels like to swim ashore."

"I'd like to remind you, young man, that Captain Hercules Getty, of the
State of Pennsylvania, who commands the brig 'Saratoga,' belongs to a
nation which has fought for liberty and won it."

"What's that got to do with his insolence?"

"I reckon that an Irishman who hasn't fought and hasn't won ought to
sing small when he's dealing with a citizen of the United States of
America."

Neal turned in his seat. The stranger's reproach struck him as being
unjust as well as being in bad taste. Maurice St. Clair was the son of a
man who had done something for Ireland.

"You don't know who you're talking to," he said, "or what you're talking
about. Lord Dunseveric, the father of the man in front of you,
commanded the North Antrim Volunteers, and did his part in winning the
independence of our Parliament."

The stranger looked steadily at Neal for sometime. Then he said--

"Is your name Neal Ward?"

"Yes. How do you know me?"

"You're the son of Micah Ward, the Presbyterian minister?"

"Yes."

"Well, I just guessed as much when I took a good look at your face. Will
you ask your father when you go home whether the Volunteers won liberty
for Irishmen, and what he thinks of the independence of an Irish
Parliament filled with placemen and the nominees of a corrupt
aristocracy?"

"Who are you?" asked Neal.

"My name's Donald