"I know her, sir," replied Luke, promptly. "I beg to say no, sir. Not unless she has twice the ballast that's in her now. I'd like permission to say a word more, sir." "Speak out! What is it?" "A ten-gun brig in the Sound can't catch that New London pirate--" "The _Boxer_ is cruising around that station," interrupted the captain. "She's a clipper to go." "No use," said Luke, shaking his head. "The old whaler'll get away." "What would you do, then?" roughly demanded another officer. "A strong corvette, or two of 'em, off Point Judith and Montauk, to catch her as she runs out," said Luke. "She'll fight any small vessel. She carries a splendid pivot-gun, and she has six long sixes. She will be handled by prime seamen." "Gentlemen," remarked the captain, "I agree with him. We have found the advice of this man Watts to be correct in every case. I believe he is right, now. We must do as he says or that pirate, perhaps others with her, will escape us. I will put him in charge of the _Termagant_. I'll feel safer about her, if she is sailed home by a man with a rebel rope around his neck." There was a general expression of assent, and then Watts spoke again. "I want Brackett, if I can have him," he said. "I never had a better mate. There's fight in him, too." "You may have him," he was told, and several of the officers present expressed their great regret that so many impressed American seamen had been ironed by Captain Avery and compelled to escape from a return to man-of-war duty. They ought never to have been detailed, it was asserted. "We can't hang 'em for desertion," they said, half jocularly. "All we could do, if we caught them, would be to set them at work again." Nevertheless, four of these escaped men were now voluntarily among the crew of the _Noank_. The remaining five had preferred to make the best of their ways to their several homes. Not one of them all had chosen to seek the friendly shelter of the British navy, so near and so ready to receive them. Luke Watts and his friends were dismissed and went on deck. Shortly afterward, their own longboat carried them to the _Termagant_ troop-ship, and the first words uttered by the Marblehead skipper after reaching her, were duly reported to his superiors. "Men!" he had exclaimed, as he glanced around him. "This thing isn't fit to go to sea. She's been handled by lubbers. We've work before us, if we don't want to go to the bottom or be overhauled by the _Yankees_. Jest look at her spars and riggin'!" All things were working together, therefore, to strengthen the confidence reposed in him, in spite of the curious fact that he had skilfully delivered the _Windsor_ and her cargo in New London instead of in New York.