“There’s only one way to take it out,” Cap said callously, “and that’s this!” He seized the splinter and pulled.

The marine squealed.

“Here,” Cap said. “Here’s your splinter. Keep it to show the folks at home.” He slapped the marine on the shoulder and pushed him toward the bow. “Go on! Get to work, now! Remember you ain’t allowed but one wound when you fight on fresh water!”

He turned to look at me. “You all right?” We stared at each other. Behind us the cabin was like a tomb.

XXXVII

THE black schooner was the Carleton, one of those transported in pieces from the St. Lawrence and put together again in St. John’s. The ship-rigged sloop-of-war was the Inflexible, and the other schooner was the Maria, both brought to St. John’s in sections in the same way, and rebuilt there. At moments when there were rifts in the clouds of smoke that jetted from a hundred cannon, we could see, at the far end of the channel, the Inflexible and the Maria riding at anchor like toy vessels, unable to beat up to us. There were seamen of distinction aboard those vessels; but for all their reputation and experience, not one of them equalled Arnold.

In everything he did, Arnold outthought them and outplanned them, and it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t, even with his inferior force, destroy them and get safe away. It was the fault of those Patriots on the seacoast, so busy building privateers that they had failed to give him the carpenters, seamen and supplies for which he had never ceased to ask.

Arnold had said the British would not keep proper watch: would run past us; and so they did. He said they couldn’t beat up to us in that narrow strait, and they didn’t. He said that if they knew enough to sail around the island and come down on us from the north, they’d be more than likely to go aground on the shoals northwest of us; but instead of sailing around the island, they lay anchored at the southern end of the channel, as if their brains had jellied. He said they’d underrate us; and this, too, they did.