"I've been makin' them two sneaks fast to a stanchion, where they won't have any too good a time. I reckon we've got to treat 'em somewhere near decent, though it goes mightily agin the grain. How is breakfast comin' on? I could eat the toughest mule that ever walked!" Fortunately for him Jerry announced at this moment that the meal was ready, and Darius would have it that I should eat in the cuddy with the officer; but I insisted he was the one who could best do the honors aboard the Avenger, when we had seamen as guests, and literally forced him to act the host. Dody Wardwell and Josiah Coburn were detailed to feed the prisoners, including the curs in the hold, and Jerry, Jim and I ate on the deck aft, where I could at the same time keep the pungy in the channel. Jim brought out some of the stores he had taken from home, and we lads had a veritable feast, with the cause of success to give flavor to food which could not be improved upon even though it had been served on a king's table. It is needless for me to set down all that was said during the forenoon when we sailed very slowly up the river, chatting in friendly fashion with our prisoners--meaning such of them as were allowed to remain on deck--, or discussing our plans for the future among ourselves, and as we did this last we almost unconsciously reckoned Jim and his friends as belonging to the pungy. In fact, after what they had done toward helping out on the night's work, it was no more than right they should be allowed to consider themselves as a portion of the Avenger's crew, if so be their desire ran that way. It was half an hour past twelve o'clock when we came in sight of the flotilla anchored off Nottingham, and seemingly blocking the river until it would have been difficult for anything larger than a canoe to pass through. "Where shall we find the commodore among all that crowd of vessels?" I asked in perplexity, and Darius replied promptly: "He's like to be aboard the Scorpion, unless havin' gone ashore. At all events, it's there we should look for him." Fortunately for us, the schooner was anchored nearer down stream than the remainder of the craft, and there was no difficulty in running the Avenger alongside. "You shall do the talking, Darius," I said as Jim Freeman passed a hawser, and his friends dropped the sails. "I'll look after that part of it so far as tellin' Joshua Barney who you are; but after that you'll take the tiller, for the owners of a vessel are the ones to show themselves." Just then a kindly-faced gentleman came from the schooner's cabin and looked about as if asking how we dared to make fast alongside. He was one whom I would have picked out for a good friend, rather than a desperate fighter, therefore my surprise was great when Darius whisked off his hat, made a great flourish as he bowed in sailorman fashion, and said: