Having entered into this retrospect for the benefit of the reader, we will now proceed. Mr Vanslyperken walked the deck for nearly a quarter of an hour without speaking: the men had finished their breakfasts, and were lounging about the deck, for there was nothing for them to do, except to look out for the return of the two boats which had been sent away the night before. The lieutenant's thoughts were at one minute, upon Mrs Vandersloosh thinking how he could persuade her, and, at another, upon Smallbones, thinking how he could render the punishment adequate, in his opinion, to the magnitude of the offence. While discussing these two important matters, one of the men reported the boats ahead, and broke up the commander's reverie. "How far off?" demanded Mr Vanslyperken. "About two miles." "Pulling or sailing?" "Pulling, sir; we stand right for them." But Mr Vanslyperken was in no pleasant humour, and ordered the cutter to be hove-to. "I tink de men have pull enough all night," said Jansen, who had just been relieved at the wheel, to Obadiah Coble, who was standing by him on the forecastle. "I think so too: but there'll be a breeze, depend upon it--never mind, the devil will have his own all in good time." "Got for dam," said Jansen, looking at Beachy Head, and shaking his own. "Why, what's the matter now, old Schnapps?" said Coble. "Schnapps--yes--the tyfel--Schnapps, I think how the French schnapped us Dutchmen here when you Englishment wouldn't fight." "Mind what you say, old twenty breeches--wouldn't fight--when wouldn't we fight?" "Here, where we were now, by Got, you leave us all in the lurch, and not come down." "Why, we couldn't come down." "Bah!" replied Jansen, who referred to the defeat of the combined Dutch and English fleet by the French off Beachy Head in 1690. "We wouldn't fight, eh?" exclaimed Obadiah in scorn--"what do you say to the Hogue?" "Yes, den you fought well--dat was good." "And shall I tell you why we fought well at the Hogue, you Dutch porpoise--just because we had no Dutchmen to help us." "And shall I tell you why the Dutch were beat off this Head?--because the English wouldn't come down to help us." Here Obadiah put his tongue into his right cheek. Jansen in return threw his into his left, and thus the argument was finished. These disputes were constant at the time, but seldom proceeded further than words--certainly not between Coble and Jansen, who were great friends.