"The Captain is as nervous over those cursed frog-eaters down between decks as if we were anchored off Paree." "Think you that is the trouble, Jose ?" returned the other in the sprightly voice of a younger man.

"I tell thee, comrade, 'tis only that bloody demon of an O'Reilly he is fearful of.

I have sailed with the 'old man' in many seas since first I left Sargon, and never expect to see him affrighted of any Johnny Frenchman.

But I heard the Admiral say two days agone, as I hung over his boat in the main chains, that if the Captain lost so much as a single prisoner it should cost him his ship.

That, I make it, comrade, is why he has n't taken so much as a glass of wine since first they were put aboard of us.