The new-comer was the ship's surgeon, and one of the bowmen observed to me, as we got the gig up at the davits, "Well, messmate, how would you like old sawbones there to take a hack at you--eh, Johnny?" I might state, if I have not done too much bragging in this chapter already, that I had already received a nickname in the forecastle, and was known as "Johnny Cutlass," which, instead of resenting, I felt quite proud of. The stays and running-gear were tested and made taut before the nightfall, and all sorts of stories went from lips to lips concerning our destination. Some said northward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence; others declared that the Spanish main would be our cruising-ground; while a few asserted that nothing but the English Channel would please old "Kill Devil." Now whither we were bound, of a truth I never found out, and of this I will speak at some length, and give a strange accounting. My, but I was tired when at last I got into my hammock! * * * * * Although it was very early in the morning when the tide was at the flood, a large crowd had gathered at the shore to watch us set sail. It was a damp, low-clouded day. A fifer had been discovered among the landsmen, and hardly had I reached the deck, sleepily rubbing my eyes, when he began to pipe a merry jig step; the men fitted the capstan bars to the capstan, and while some scrambled aloft, as many as could lay hold and find foot room began trotting merrily about to the music. In came the cable, a couple of men alongside slushing it with water to keep the black mud off the deck, and slowly the _Young Eagle_ walked up to her anchor. A slight breeze was blowing toward the mouth of the harbor, and the foresail and top-sail fluttered and caught it. A faint cheer sounded from the wharves, and the crew answered. Then the brass swivel on the forecastle cracked out a salute, and the privateer was off for adventures. A wild exhilaration thrilled me, but I could see that I was not the only one affected in this manner. A double allowance of grog had been served as soon as we were under way. I tasted it, of course, and it burned my throat like fire, so that I handed my allowance to Sutton, thereby cementing the friendship that had sprung up between us, and it was not bad policy. Soon Fishers Island and the mainland faded out in the blotch of gray fog that, despite the wind, hung all around. And now, as if to test the seamanship of the crew, sails were taken in and spread again, and as the wind increased the brig heeled over until the sea was roaring and tumbling along her rail, and the lower sails were wet with the splash of the spray as it flew across the deck. But there was no stopping the headway of the little vessel as she met the heavy ground-swell of the ocean. There was none of the thumping that I remembered hearing on board the old _Minetta_.