We went into the cabin and set the cabin tiller in place. The schooners showed up bright through the cabin ports, like a sailor’s half-model in a frame. Arnold rubbed his hands together cheerfully, and the gun-crews, ranged around the two long eighteens, stared at him open-mouthed, as though they watched a figure in a play.

He looked a little like that, too, with his hat cocked on one side, his handsome blue coat, half open over a long waistcoat of yellow fur, and breeches of buff deerskin. Arnold was always neat; and being a rich man, with means to indulge his whims, he was always uniformed as a soldier should be—but as few were, in our poor army. He was one of those persons who seem neat, no matter what they wear, and he took pride in his appearance.

“If you’re going to lead troops,” he told me once, “you ought to try to look like a leader.” I could see, now, what he meant. In the fascinated stare of the two gun-crews there was something more than admiration for their confident, smiling commander. Like myself, they were sure he’d bring us safe through the coming battle.

Arnold tinkered with the quoin beneath the breech of the larboard eighteen-pounder: threw his weight on the gun to raise the muzzle: wrenched at the carriage and said, “Off a little: off a little!”

I altered our course the merest whisker.

Arnold nodded to the gun captain, who slapped his linstock against the breech. The cabin flooring jerked: the galley lurched: the gun roared and sent white smoke rolling and tumbling astern. Arnold ran to the other stern gun and struggled with the quoin.

We heard a gun slam from the Washington: two thudded together from the Trumbull and the Royal Savage.

Arnold peered through the port. “Missed!” he said. He stooped, squinted, threw up his hand. The linstock slapped, and our heads rang with the crash.

He turned the guns over to Steven Nason and motioned me on deck.

A seaman in the main top hung over the edge to bawl, “Splinters under the schooner’s larboard cat-head!”

A voice far forward—the voice of Cap Huff, I would have sworn—shouted “Rum!” Another voice took it up, and another, until the whole forepart of the vessel was clamoring for rum.

The galley stood up well to the cold north wind, slashing through the chop with cheery chucklings. Far behind us the British schooner let off another gun. We saw the shot kick up a spout between the Royal Savage and the Trumbull. War, I thought, wasn’t so bad, after all. The Royal Savage seemed slow, but she was better built than our rough galleys; and I was glad Nathaniel could see a battle under such favorable circumstances. It couldn’t help, I felt, but give him a greater sense of loyalty to those for whom he fought.