"
"What's that you're grumbling there, like a dead northeaster, you horse-
mackerel?" said Barnstable; "where are our friends and countrymen who
are on the land? Are we to leave them to swing on gibbets or rot in
dungeons?"
The cockswain listened with great earnestness, and when his commander
had spoken, he struck the palm of his broad hand against his brawny
thigh, with a report like a pistol, and answered:
"I see how it is, sir; you reckon the red-coats have Mr. Griffith in
tow. Just run the schooner into shoal water, Captain Barnstable, and
drop an anchor, where we can get the long gun to bear on them, and give
me the whale-boat and five or six men to back me--they must have long
legs if they get an offing before I run them aboard!"
"Fool! do you think a boat's crew could contend with fifty armed
soldiers?"
"Soldiers!" echoed Tom, whose spirits had been strongly excited by the
conflict, snapping his fingers with ineffable disdain; "that for all the
soldiers that were ever rigged: one whale could kill a thousand of them!
and here stands the man that has killed his round hundred of whales!"
"Pshaw, you grampus, do you turn braggart in your old age?"
"It's no bragging, sir, to speak a log-book truth! but if Captain
Barnstable thinks that old Tom Coffin carries a speaking-trumpet for a
figure-head, let him pass the word forrard to man the boats."
"No, no, my old master at the marlinspike," said Barnstable, kindly, "I
know thee too well, thou brother of Neptune! but shall we not throw the
bread-room dust in those Englishmen's eyes, by wearing their bunting a
while, till something may offer to help our captured countrymen.
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