Chapter 9 - Page 2

other
lieutenants failed. His superior now turned round and looked him
intently in the face, as if struck with the notion the other thus
indirectly laid before him. This movement was noted; and, at a sign
secretly given by Winchester, the whole crew gave three hearty cheers;
Strand leading off as soon as he caught the idea. This was the only
manner in which the crew of a man-of-war can express their wishes to
their commander; it being always tolerated in a navy to hurrah, by way
of showing the courage of a ship's company. Cuffe walked aft in a
thoughtful manner and descended to his cabin again; but a servant soon
came up, to say that the captain desired to see the first lieutenant.

"I do not half like this boat-service in open daylight, Winchester,"
observed the senior, beckoning to the other to take a chair. "The least
bungling may spoil it all; and then it's ten to one but your ship goes
half-manned for a twelvemonth, until you are driven to pressing from
colliers and neutrals."

"But we hope, sir, there'll be no bungling in anything that the
Proserpine undertakes. Nine times in ten an English man-of-war succeeds
when she makes a bold dash in boats against one of these picaroons. This
lugger is so low in the water, too, that it will be like stepping from
one cutter into another to get upon her decks; and then, sir, I suppose,
you don't doubt what Englishmen will do?"

"Aye, Winchester, once on her deck, I make no doubt you'd carry her; but
it may not be so easy as you imagine to get on her deck. Of all duty to
a captain, this of sending off boats is the most unpleasant. He cannot
go in person, and if anything unfortunate turns up he never forgives
himself. Now, it's a very different thing with a fight in which all
share alike, and the good or evil comes equally on all hands."

"Quite true, Captain Cuffe; and yet this is the only chance that the
lieutenants have for getting ahead a little out of the regular course. I
have heard, sir, that you were made commander for cutting out some
coasters in the beginning of the war."

"You have not been misinformed, and a devil of a risk we all ran. Luck
saved us--and that was all. One more fire from a cursed carronade would
have given a Flemish account of the whole party; for, once get a little
under, and you suffer like game in a _batteau_." Captain Cuffe wished to
say _battue_; but, despising foreign languages, he generally made sad
work with them whenever he did condescend to resort to their terms,
however familiar. "This Raoul Yvard is a devil incarnate himself at this
boarding work, and is said to have taken off the head of a master's mate
of the Theseus with one clip of his sword