Chapter 26 - Page 2

vessel has been recent?"

"As my arrival in this."

The Rover continued silent for several minutes communing with his own
thoughts. His companion made no offer to disturb his meditations; though
the furtive glances, he often cast in the direction of the other's musing
eye, betrayed some little anxiety to learn the result of his
self-communication.

"And her guns?" at length his Commander abruptly demanded.

"She numbers four more than the 'Dolphin.'"

"The metal?"

"Is still heavier. In every particular is she a ship a size above your
own."

"Doubtless she is the property of the King?"

"She is."

"Then shall she change her masters. By heaven she shall be mine!"

Wilder shook his head, answering only with an incredulous smile.

"You doubt it," resumed the Rover. "Come hither, and look upon that deck.
Can he whom you so lately quitted muster fellows like these, to do his
biddings?"

The crew of the 'Dolphin' had been chosen, by one who thoroughly
understood the character of a seaman, from among all the different people
of the Christian world. There was not a maritime nation in Europe which
had not its representative among; that band of turbulent and desperate
spirits. Even the descendant of the aboriginal possessors of America had
been made to abandon the habits and opinions of his progenitors, to become
a wanderer on that element which had laved the shores of his native land
for ages, without exciting a wish to penetrate its mysteries in the
bosoms of his simple-minded ancestry. All had been suited, by lives of
wild adventure, on the two elements, for their present lawless pursuits
and, directed by the mind which had known how to obtain and to continue
its despotic ascendancy over their efforts, they truly formed a most
dangerous and (considering their numbers) resistless crew. Their Commander
smiled in exultation, as he watched the evident reflection with which his
companion contemplated the indifference, or fierce joy, which different
individuals among them exhibited at the appearance of an approaching
conflict. Even the rawest of their numbers, the luckless waisters and
after-guard, were apparently as confident of victory as those whose
audacity might plead the apology of uniform and often repeated success.

"Count you these for nothing?" asked the Rover, at the elbow of his
lieutenant, after allowing him time to embrace the whole of the grim band
with his eye. "See! here is a Dane, ponderous and steady as the gun at
which I shall shortly place him. You may cut him limb from limb, and yet
will he stand like a tower, until the