the carpenter's mate, picked a hole in the seams
so that the vessel nearly foundered, and in the confusion we fell upon
the prize crew, and, using our fetters as cudgels, regained possession
of the vessel. But you smile, as though there were little hopes from any
such plan!'

'If this wool-house were the galley _Providence_ and Taunton Deane were
the Bay of Biscay, it might be attempted,' I said.

'I have indeed got out o' the channel,' he answered, with a wrinkled
brow. 'There is, however, another most excellent plan which I have
conceived, which is to blow up the building.'

'To blow it up!' I cried.

'Aye! A brace of kegs and a slow match would do it any dark night. Then
where would be these walls which now shut ye in?'

'Where would be the folk that are now inside them!' I asked. 'Would you
not blow them up as well?'

'Plague take it, I had forgot that,' cried Solomon. 'Nay, then, I leave
it with you. What have you to propose? Do but give your sailing orders,
and, with or without a consort, you will find that I will steer by them
as long as this old hulk can answer to her helm.'

'Then my advice is, my dear old friend,' said I, 'that you leave matters
to take their course, and hie back to Havant with a message from me to
those who know me, telling them to be of good cheer, and to hope for the
best. Neither you nor any other man can help me now, for I have thrown
in my lot with these poor folk, and I would not leave them if I could.
Do what you can to cheer my mother's heart, and commend me to Zachary
Palmer. Your visit hath been a joy to me, and your return will be the
same to them. You can serve me better so than by biding here.'

'Sink me if I like going back without a blow struck,' he growled. 'Yet
if it is your will there is an end of the matter. Tell me, lad. Has
that lank-sparred, slab-sided, herring-gutted friend of yours played
you false? for if he has, by the eternal, old as I am, my hanger shall
scrape acquaintance with the longshore tuck which hangs at his girdle. I
know where he hath laid himself up, moored stem and stern, all snug and
shipshape, waiting for the turn of the tide.'

'What, Saxon!' I cried. 'Do you indeed know where he is? For God's sake
speak low, for it would mean a commission and five hundred good pounds
to any one of these soldiers could he lay hands upon him.'

'They are scarce like to do that,' said Solomon. 'On my journey hither I
chanced to put into port at a place call