"We are all ready, you know, to do anything that the chief bids us, but for the life of us no one can make this business out.

The only possible thing seems to be that the chief intends to attack the French fleet, and desperate as many of his exploits have been, they would be as nothing to that.

Even the earl could surely not expect that fifteen hundred men in fishing boats and barges could attack a fleet of some thirty men of war.

The idea seems preposterous, and yet one does not see what else he can have got in his head." "Of course, colonel," Jack said, laughing, "you do not expect me to tell you what are the general's plans.

You may be quite sure that, whatever they are, there is nothing absolutely impossible about them, for you know that although the general may undertake desperate things, he never attempts anything that has not at least a possibility of success; in fact, as you know, he has never yet failed in any enterprise that he has undertaken." "That is true enough," the colonel said; "and yet for the life of me I cannot make out what else he can be thinking of.