‘It’ll never come to a fight, Mr. Monson,’ he responded, ‘though I don’t say it may not come to our having to fire at the vessel to stop her; for you see if the Colonel commands Fidler to keep all fast and take no notice of us there’ll be nothen for him but to obey: whilst stop her _we_ must, do ye see, sir? But as to fighting----’ he shook his head. ‘No, sir; when the time’s come for boarding they’ll be willing to let us walk quietly over the side, no matter how much they may consider their feelings injured by our shooting at ’em. In short it’s like this; ne’er a man aboard the “Shark” but knows what the Colonel and her Ladyship’s gone and done; a good many, I dessay, are husbands themselves, not to speak of their being Englishmen, and ye may take it that ne’er a hand of ’em from Fidler down is going to resist Sir Wilfrid’s stepping on board to demand his own.’ ‘You may be right,’ said I; ‘’tis hard to say, though. Do our crew know the errand we are on?’ ‘Bound to it, sir. In fact, the shipping of that there gun wouldn’t allow the job to remain a secret. But the “Shark” was away first, and if all Southampton had got talking of our intention it couldn’t have signified, so far as consarns I mean their guessing at it aboard the “Shark.”’ ‘You must have pushed your equipment forward with wonderful expedition?’ ‘Yes, sir; we worked day and night. Of course we was all ready for sea, but there would be many things a-wanting for what might turn out a six or seven thousand mile run with ne’er a stoppage along the whole road of it.’ My eye was just then taken by something that glittered upon the mainmast within reach of a man’s uplifted arm. I peered, imagining it to be a little plate with an inscription upon it commemorating something that Wilfrid might have deemed worthy of a memorial. I caught Finn grinning. ‘D’ye see what it is, sir?’ said he. I looked again, and shook my head. He walked to the mast, and I followed him, and now I saw that it was a handsome five-guinea piece, obviously of an old date--but it was too high to distinguish the impress clearly--secured by a couple of little staples which gripped without piercing or wounding it. ‘That piece of money,’ said Finn, ‘is for the first man that sights the “Shark.”’ ‘Ha!’ I exclaimed, ‘an old whaling practice. My cousin has not viewed the world for nothing!’ It was but a trifling thing, yet in its way it was almost as hard a bit of underscoring of my cousin’s resolution as the long grinning piece they were cleaning forward, or the stand of arms against the bulkhead below. ‘What’s the pace, captain?’ ‘A full ten, sir, by the last heave of the log.’ I fell a-whistling--for it was grand sailing, surely--with a lift of my eye to the topgallant sail that lay stowed in a snow-white streak with a proper man-of-war’s bunt amidships on the slender black yard.