Blackbeard fell back a step or two in his amazement, while a murmur swept over the crew, who, loath to leave the scene, had remained interested listeners to the colloquy. “What! René the Iron Arm aboard the _Sally_?” said the captain, approaching the Frenchman again. “Soho! Though, by St. Paul’s--ye’re not unlike-- An’ with a wig an’ doublet-- ’Pon my soul, Jacky Jacquard, but I believe ’tis the truth. Say, is it so, master?” “I am René Mornay,” said the Frenchman. “Soho!” he roared in delight. “Then _Sally_ shall give ye meat and drink and make a bed to ye. An’ when ye will she’ll set ye ashore in France. Or, if ye care for the clashin’ of arms, she’ll show ye the path of the galleons o’ Spain. Come, let’s below and drink to a better understanding.” It was thus that Monsieur Mornay sailed forth for the Spanish Main. CHAPTER X BRAS-DE-FER MAKES A CAPTURE The feat at arms of Monsieur Mornay at the expense of the luckless Gratz had set the ship by the ears, and with little opposition Bras-de-Fer became the third in command. Before many weeks were gone it was discovered that he had his seamanship at as ready a convenience as his pike-play, for in a troublesome squall in a windy watch on deck, while Jacquard was below, he had not scrupled to take the command from Captain Billy Winch, who was so deep in liquor that he didn’t know the main-brace from a spritsail sheet, and who had had the _Sally_ upon her beam-ends, with all his ports and hatches open. Mornay sprang to the helm and gave the orders necessary to bring her to rights. Indeed, the command had clearly devolved upon Jacquard; for the lucid intervals of Captain Billy Winch were becoming less and less, until from that state of continued jubilation which marked his departure from the port of London he had passed into one of beatific unconsciousness, from which he only aroused himself to assuage his thirst the more copiously. One black morning in the wilds of the Atlantic he reached the deck, his eyes wide with fever and his mouth full of oaths, swearing that he would no longer stay below, but his legs were so completely at a loss that, what with the wild plunges of the vessel and the assaults of the seas which made clean breaches over her, he was thrown down into the scuppers again and again, and all but drowned in the wash of the deck. But the bruising and sousing in the saltwater, instead of rebuffing him or abating a whit of his ardor, but served to sober him and make him the more ambitious to take his proper place aboard the vessel. Jacquard would have restrained him, but he threw the Frenchman aside, and, while trying to descend the ladder at the angle of the poop, lost his balance, and, catching wildly at the lee bulwark, disappeared in the dirty smother under the quarter and was seen no more.