Hadn't we brought the Crisis through that opening first, he
never would have dared to go out by it."
I confess I saw little about Monsieur Le Compte's management but skill
and good seamanship; but nothing is more painful to most men than to
admit the merit of those who have obtained an advantage over them.
Marble could not forget his own defeat; and the recollection jaundiced
his eyes, and biassed his judgment.
"I see our people are busy, already, sir," I remarked, by way of
drawing the captain's attention to some other subject. "They have
hauled the schooner up to the yard, and seem to be getting along spars
for shores."
"Ay, ay--Talcott has his orders; and I expect you will bestir
yourself. I shall step the masts myself, and you will get all the
rigging ready to be put into its place, the moment it is
possible. That Frenchman calculated, he told me to my face, that we
might get to sea in a fortnight; I will let him see that a set of
Yankees can rig and stow his bloody schooner, in three days, and then
leave themselves time to play."
Marble was not a man of idle vaunts. He soon had everybody at work,
with a system, order, silence, and activity, that proved he was master
of his profession. Nor was the language which might sound so boastful
to foreign ears, altogether without its justification.
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