As soon as they were all seated about the table in the little front room and had ascertained that there was no chance of their conversation being overheard, Conyngham related his experience.
The company laughed heartily as he told of the English captain’s discomfiture, but Hodge a moment later looked very grave. So much so, in fact, that Allan, noticing it, clapped him on the shoulder.
“What is it, friend William? You look suddenly stricken with grief or disappointment.”
“I am just thinking,” was the return, “that a great deal will have to be done before the sun goes down this day. One of us will have to post at once to Paris. We must not delay turning over the mails to the proper authorities, and--another thing--we must get this news to the ears of the Count de Vergennes before it is brought to him by Lord Stormont. I like not altogether de Vergennes’s attitude. He would see us all at the bottom of the sea rather than sacrifice a chosen project of his own, and, as I have said many a time, back of all his half-expressed desires to lend us assistance is but the hope of aiding France’s interest.”
“Well, if any one is to go,” returned the elder Ross, “it should be you, Mr. Hodge, unless you consider it necessary that the captain here should go up in person.”
Conyngham shook his head. “I’m afraid that would be impossible,” he put in. “It would never do at all, at all. I will have to stand by my ship for a few days at least, until we dispose of the prizes in such a manner as to enable me to pay off my crew. Is there much money in the treasury, Mr. Ross?” he asked.
The latter laughed. “I don’t suppose that we have fifty pounds among us at present,” he said. “The treasury has been on the ebb for the past fortnight, but M. Grand, our banker in Paris, is hopeful.”
“There is a good four thousand pounds of ready money in the prizes,” said Conyngham, “and much that could be disposed of on the nail, could we but put it immediately in the market. But it is my belief what must be done must be done quickly. Mr. Hodge should start with the mails for Paris--no one will recognize what those canvas bags contain, and we should scent out some purchaser and sail out of the harbor this very afternoon and hold a little auction off the coast.”