This is Bolt, Captain Cuffe, the
foretop-man, who ran from us when last in England, was caught and put in
a guard-ship, from which they sent us word he stole a boat and got off
with two or three French prisoners, who happened to be there at the
moment on some inquiry or other. Don't you remember it all, Mr.
Griffin--you may remember the fellow pretended to be an American."
Ithuel was now completely exposed, and he at once perceived that his
wisest way was to submit. Cuffe's countenance darkened, for he regarded
a deserter with a species of professional horror, and the impressed
deserter, to whose services England had no other right than that of
might, with an additional degree of resentment, that was very fairly
proportioned to the inward consciousness he felt that a great wrong was
done in detaining the man at all. There is nothing extraordinary in
these feelings; a very common resource, under such circumstances, being
to imagine delinquencies that justify us to ourselves, by endeavoring to
believe that the subject of any act of our oppression at least merits
the infliction.
"Do you dare to deny what this young gentleman has just said, sirrah?"
demanded the captain. "I now remember you myself; you are Bolt, the
foretop-man, that ran at Plymouth."
"You'd a-run, too, Captain Cuffe, had you been in my place, had the ship
been at Jericho."
"Enough--no impudence, sir. Send for the master-at-arms, Mr. Griffin,
and have the fellow ironed: to-morrow we'll look into the affair.
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