While the Dutch and Sir Joseph are debating as to whether Commodore
Paul Jones is a rebel, a pirate or a disagreeable guest, that gentleman
discovers Landais, with the Alliance, tucked away in a corner of the
Texel. Headwinds, and an overplus of English on the high seas, have
forced the miscreant into the Helder, and he finds himself as much
cooped up as does Commodore Paul Jones. Indeed the miserable Landais is
in a far more serious predicament; for, aside from the English
outside, waiting at the Helder’s mouth like terriers at a rat-hole, the
formidable Paul Jones is inside with him, and Landais fears the latter
as no Frenchman ever feared the English.
The alarms of Landais are well grounded; Commodore Paul Jones opens
negotiations at once. He sends word to Landais to give command of the
_Alliance_ to Lieutenant Degge, and at once leave the ship. The word is
supplemented by the assurance that at the end of twenty-four hours he,
Commodore Paul Jones, shall come aboard the Alliance. Should he then
find Landais, he will be put in irons.
“Why not arrest the scoundrel at once?” pleads Lieutenant Dale.
“He is a Frenchman, Dick,” returns Commodore Paul Jones, “and I fear to
worry Doctor Franklin.” Then, assuming a look of cunning, vast and deep:
“Wait until my diplomacy unfolds itself. You will find that I have the
wisdom of the serpent.”
Lieutenant Dale grunts disgustedly. He cares nothing for the wisdom of
the serpent, less for any spun-glass diplomacy. What he wants is the
Landais blood directly; and says as much.
“Remember,” he goes on, “this murderer Landais killed Caswell with that
last felon broadside!”
“I shall forget nothing,” returns Commodore Paul Jones.
At the end of twenty-four hours, Commodore Paul Jones boards the
_Alliance_. He finds Lieutenant Degge in command; the craven Landais has
slipped ashore with all his belongings. Commodore Paul Jones is the
last man he cares to face. The latter tells Lieutenant Degge to clap the
irons on Landais, should he return, and signal the _Serapis_.
“You must understand, sir,” responds Lieutenant Degge, “that my crew
is honeycombed with mutiny. Captain Landais brought about a conspiracy;
two-thirds of the ship’s company are in it.”
“Make me out a list of the leaders, and muster them aft.”
Lieutenant Degge gives Commodore Paul Jones the names of twenty. These
are called aft--lowering and sullen. Commodore Paul Jones orders them
transferred to the _Serapis_.
“I’ll send you an even number to take their places,” he says to
Lieutenant Degge. “Meanwhile, my old sea-wolves will lick them into
patriotic shape. Should they fail, you may find some half dozen of the
ringleaders at least, dangling from my yardarms.”
The caitiff Landais, driven from his ship, fumes and blusters. He tries
to see the French Ambassador, and is refused. Then he sends a challenge
to Commodore Paul Jones.
Lieutenant Dale finds the latter mariner in his cabin, blandly
triumphant.
“There,” he cries, tossing the Landais challenge over to Lieutenant
Dale--“there, Dick, read that! You will then see what I meant by
telling you to wait until my diplomacy had had time to unfold.”
“But you don’t mean to fight the creature?” and Lieutenant Dale glances
up from his reading, horrified.
“Fight him; and kill him, sir! Why not? Do you suppose for a moment that
poor Caswell is to go unavenged?”
“But think what you do! You can’t fight this fellow! The man is to be
court-martialed.”
“Ah, yes, Dick! But observe; I’ve as yet refrained from making formal
charges against him. So far as the books go, he rates as well as you or
I.”
Commodore Paul Jones gets this off with inexpressible slyness, as one
who discloses the very heart of his cunning.
“But my dear Commodore,” returns Lieutenant Dale, desperately, “the
thing is impossible! This Landais is not a gentleman! He is the
commonest of blacklegs.”
“Dick! Dick!” remonstrates Commodore Paul Jones; “you do him an
injustice! Technically at least you wrong him. You should summon up more
fairness. Now, here is how I look at it:” Commodore Paul Jones grows
highly judgmatical. “I follow the law, which says that a man is supposed
to be innocent until he’s shown to be guilty. Influenced by this, which
to my mind breathes the very spirit of justice, I make it an unbreakable
rule, in matters of the duello, to regard every man as a gentleman
unless the contrary has been explicitly demonstrated. No, Dick”--this
solemnly--“Landais, whatever you or I may privately think, has still his
rights. I shall fight him, Dick.”
Commodore Paul Jones sends Lieutenant May-rant ashore, as his
representative, to accept the Landais challenge.
“I should have sent you, Dick,” he explains to Lieutenant Dale, who
inclines to the cloudy because he had been slighted; “but, to tell the
truth, I couldn’t trust you. Yes; you’d have cut in between us, and
fought him in my stead. And the fact is, if you must have it, I’ve set
my heart on killing the rogue myself.”
Lieutenant Mayrant finds Landais, vaporing and blustering.
“Pistols; ten paces,” says Lieutenant May-rant. “Time and place you may
settle for yourself.”
“Pistols!” exclaims Landais, his face a muddy gray. Pistols and Paul
Jones mean death. With a gesture, as though dismissing an unpleasant
thought, he cries: “I shall not fight with pistols! They are not
recognized in Prance as the weapons of a gentleman!”
“They are in America,” retorts Lieutenant Mayrant. “Neither shall you
palter or split hairs! Pistols it shall be; or I tell you frankly that
the officers of the _Serapis_, ay! the very foc’sel hands, will beat
you and drub you for a cowardly swab, wherever they come across you.”
Landais does not respond directly to this. He walks up and down,
stomaching the hard words in silence. For he perceives, as through an
open window, that the hidden purpose of Lieutenant Mayrant is to pick
a quarrel with him. At last Landais makes it clear that under no
compulsion will he fight with pistols. Neither will he give the hopeful
Mayrant an opening to edge in a challenge for himself. After a fruitless
hour the latter, sad and depressed, returns aboard the _Serapis_.
“Nothing could have been handled more delicately,” he reports to
Commodore Paul Jones; “but, do my best, sir, I couldn’t coax the rascal
to the field.”
The next day Lieutenant Dale, making a flimsy excuse about wishing to
see the French secretary, goes ashore. He is using a crutch; for, like
Lieutenant Mayrant, he was wounded in the battle. He finds the crutch
inexpressibly convenient. Having hunted down Landais, whom he finds in a
change house, he uses it to belabor that personage, giving him the while
such descriptives as “dog!” “spy!” “liar!” “coward!” The heavy Dutchmen,
quaffing their beer, interfere to save Landais from the warlike
Lieutenant Dale. That night Landais starts post for Paris, to the mighty
disappointment of Commodore Paul Jones.
“You told me you wanted to see the French secretary. It wasn’t fair
of you, Dick!” is all Commodore Paul Jones says, when he learns of the
doings of Lieutenant Dale and his crutch in the change house.
“Well!” grumbles Lieutenant Dale defensively, “so I did want to see the
French secretary; although I’ve now forgotten what it was all about. The
sight of that dastard drove it from my head.”
The French Ambassador again boards the _Serapis_. He bears orders from
De Sartine, the French Minister of Marine, and a letter from Doctor
Franklin, full of suggestions which have the force of orders. The
_Pallas_ is a French ship, and the _Scarboro_ captured by it, is a
French prize. The _Serapis_, prize to the _Richard_, also a French ship,
is by the same token a French prize. The French flag must be hoisted
on these ships, and the trio made over to the French Ambassador. The
_Alliance_, an American built ship, the King of France doesn’t claim.
He recommends, however, that it run up French colors, as a diplomatic
method of quieting Dutch excitement, which is slowly but surely rising.
Doctor Franklin’s letter sustains the French claim to the _Pallas_, the
_Scarboro_ and the _Serapis_. He leaves Commodore Paul Jones to settle
flags for the _Alliance_ as he may deem best. The Ambassador makes, in
this connection, a second tender of a Captain’s commission in the French
Navy.
“No,” responds Commodore Paul Jones bitterly, “I shall not accept it.
King Louis shall have the _Serapis_, the _Pallas_ and the _Scarboro_
since Doctor Franklin so orders. The _Alliance_ and I, however, shall
remain American.”
Commodore Paul Jones gives the French Ambassador possession of the
_Serapis_. Also, he waxes sarcastic, and intimates that it is the only
way by which the French could have gotten the _Serapis_ into their
hands. This piece of wit does him no good, when later he asks it
back from De Sartine. Sullen and dogged, he prepares to go aboard the
Alliance, and orders the crew of the _Serapis_ to follow.
Again the French Ambassador interferes. What French subjects are on
the musters of the Alliance and _Serapis_ must be left in his charge.
Commodore Paul Jones is to have none but Americans.
At this some sixty Danes speak up. They may not be Americans, but at
least they are not French. Making this announcement, the gallant Scands
refuse the orders of the French Ambassador, and pack their kits for the
_Alliance_. These Danes are of the true viking litter, with yellow hair
and steel-gray eyes. Their action comes like balm to the sore heart of
Commodore Paul Jones. Later when he musters his reorganized crew aboard
the _Alliance_, and makes them a brief talk, he speaks of the desertion
of the French. He is interrupted by a youth--small and light and
delicate. The youth steps out from among the sailors, and with him come
four others. The youth bows half-way to the deck.
“No,” he says--“no, Monsieur le Commodore, not all the French have
desert. I, Pierre Gerard, am still with you--I, and my four bold
comrades, who are brave men.”
“They wants to stay, sir,” vouchsafes Boatswain Jack Robinson, coming
forward to the aid of little Pierre and his companions. “An’ so, d’ye
see, since I always likes to encourage zeal, I stows ‘em away in the
long boat till that frog-eatin’ Ambassador is over the side. An’ so,
here they be, game as pebbles, an’ a credit to the sta’board watch.”
All his prisoners and wounded have been put ashore, under arrangements
with the Dutch and the gouty Sir Joseph. Aboard the _Alliance_,
Commodore Paul Jones finds himself at the head of four hundred and
twelve war-hardened wolves of the sea, American blood to a man, all save
the sixty vikings, and little Pierre with his four.