“You seem to be a pretty decent sort of a fellow,” came the voice of the “admiral,” “an’ I’m allowin’ you’ve put the thing pretty near right, though of course we are lookin’ on you as an enemy. Come out here an’ let’s you an’ I have a blow-off over this ’ere question, to see if I can persuade you to turn ’round an’ be honest once more.” The man went into the cockpit laughing, and I heard him say when he got there: “An’ what chance would me and my mates have in tryin’ to talk you into turnin’ against them as you have sworn to obey?” “Mighty little, an’ that’s a fact,” Abel Grant replied. “Then don’t think I’m pig-headed if you can’t twist me around your finger.” I looked out into the cockpit and saw the Britisher filling Abel’s pipe for him, the two behaving toward each other as if they had long been cronies, and, calling Abraham’s attention to the scene, I said, regretting that it might not be: “If we could come at all the lobster-backs whom the king has sent over here, in the same manner we have our prisoner, there wouldn’t be much of a war, I’m thinkin’.” “Ay, in that you are right, Eph, for if we came at ’em in the same manner they’d all have been our prisoners, consequently, there wouldn’t be anybody left to fight against us. It strikes me, however, that just now instead of talking politics, you an’ I had better get this grub cooked, for if Abel and the lobster-back are as hungry as I am, they’ll soon be after us with a sharp stick for sogering.” I wish I might be able to go into all the details of that voyage which lasted throughout five full days, setting down accurately all we said and did while hob-nobbing with the lobster-back, for that was really what we did do. The fellow showed himself to be so companionable, and with such a fund of good nature, that however brutal we may have wanted to treat him, it would have been impossible. He was more like a friend than an enemy, and seemingly as eager for the success of our venture as if his whole heart was bound up in the Cause. “Why should I feel otherwise,” he said one day, when I taxed him with disloyalty to the king in thus being eager for our success. “Accordin’ to the way I look at it, being a prisoner of war on parole, I’m neither fish, flesh nor fowl, an’ being deprived by my oath of doin’ that which is my duty, why isn’t it natural I’d like to see three plucky fellows, who have done an amazin’ good turn, as I look at it, succeed in their venture?” “But if we failed you would regain your liberty,” Abel suggested, and the Britisher replied with a laugh: “Perhaps I am not so eager at goin’ back to duty on board ship when I am comfortably fixed here, an’ with jolly companions.”