"It is glorious, Francis," Matteo said, "to think that we should have recaptured four of our ships!" "It is very good, as far as it goes," Francis replied, "but it might have been a great deal better.

If it hadn't been for the storm, we might have picked them all up one by one.

Each vessel we took, the stronger we became, and I had calculated upon our capturing the greater number.

But in such a sea, I don't think we could possibly capture more than we did." "I should think not," Matteo said.

"I had never dreamt of doing more than recovering the Pluto, and when you first talked about that, it seemed almost like madness.