A little silence ensued, for the threat of fire was a formidable one, and Morton’s three assistants had counted the enemy’s force as it landed, and were now clamoring for surrender. But he, who at least was no coward, retorted upon them with a grotesque oath that alone, if need be, he would chase these psalm-singers into the ocean, and returning to the porthole shouted again,-- “Hola! Captain, Captain Shrimp”-- “I hold no parley with one so ignorant of the uses of war as to insult a flag of truce,” interposed Standish, and Morton laughing boisterously rejoined,-- “I cry you mercy, noble sir, and will in future, that is to say, the near future, treat you with all the honor due to the Generalissimo of the Plymouth Army. And now deign, most puissant leader, to satisfy me as to the intent of the Governor of Plymouth should he gain possession of the body of Thomas Morton, that is to say of the living body, for should you see fit to carry him naught but a murdered carcass, well I wot he would hang it to the wall of his Fort upon the hill to keep company with the skull of Wituwamat. So again I demand--and I crave your pardon, most worshipful, if I am somewhat prolix; but indeed it is such a merry sight to watch your noble countenance waxing more and more rubicund and wrathful while I speak”-- “When I have counted ten I shall order the assault if I have no reasonable answer sooner,” interrupted Standish briefly. “One, two”-- “Hold, hold, man! Why so violent and rash? Tell me in a word what will Bradford do with me an I yield?” “Send you to England for trial.” “Trial on what count?” And as he asked the question Morton’s voice took on a new tone, one of anxiety and even alarm, for conscience was clamoring that a dark story of robbery and murder might have followed him from the western shores of Old England to the eastern coast of New. But Standish’s reply reassured him. “For selling arms and ammunition to the Indians contrary to the king’s proclamation.” “And what is a proclamation, Master General?” demanded the rebel truculently. “Mayhap you do not know that I, Thomas Morton, Gentleman, am a clerk learned in the law, a solicitor and barrister of Clifford’s Inn, London, and I assure you that a royal proclamation is not law, and its breach entails no penalty. Do you comprehend this subtlety, mine ancient? Suppose I _have_ broken a proclamation of King James’s, what penalty have I incurred, if not that of the law?” “The penalty of those who disobey and insult a king, whatever that may be,” sturdily replied Standish. “But all that”-- “Nay, nay; know you not, most valiant Generalissimo, that while a law entered upon the statute book of England remains in force until it is repealed, a royal proclamation dies with the monarch who utters it? King James’s proclamation sleeps with him at Westminster, and I never have heard that King Charles has uttered any.”