“I want to see ’em dangling,” said Hornblower, searching feverishly in his mind for the most impressive thing he could say.
The two English seamen, taking advantage of the volume of protest, had paused in the execution of their orders. Hornblower looked up at the noose, dangling dimly but horribly in the fog.
“I don’t believe for one single moment,” went on Hornblower, “that these men are what they say they are. Just a band of thieves, pirates. Leadbitter, put four men on that line. I’ll give the word when they are to walk away with it.”
“Sir,” said Lebon, “I assure you, word of honour, we are from the privateer Vengeance.”
“Bah!” replied Hornblower. “Where is she?”
“Over there,” said Lebon. He could not point with his hands; he pointed with his chin, over the port bow of the anchored Amelia Jane. It was not a very definite indication, but it was a considerable help, even that much.
“Did you see any vessel over there before the fog closed down, captain?” demanded Hornblower, turning to the English captain.
“Only the Ramsgate trawler,” he said, reluctantly.
“That is our ship!” said Lebon. “That is the Vengeance! She was a Dunkirk trawler — we — we made her look like that.”
So that was it. A Dunkirk trawler. Her fish‑holds could be crammed full of men. A slight alteration of gear, an “R” painted on her mainsail, a suitable name painted on her stern and then she could wander about the narrow seas without question, snapping up prizes almost at will.
“Where did you say she lay?” demanded Hornblower.
“There — oh!”
Lebon checked himself as he realized how much information he was giving away.
“I can hazard a good guess as to how she bears from us,” interposed the English captain, “I saw — oh!”
He broke off exactly as Lebon had done, but from surprise. He was staring at Hornblower. It was like the denouement scene in some silly farce. The lost heir was at last revealed. The idea of now accepting the admiration of his unwitting fellow players, of modestly admitting that he was not the monster of ferocity he had pretended to be, irritated Hornblower beyond all bearing. All his instincts and good taste rose against the trite and the obvious. Now that he had acquired the information he had sought he could please himself as long as he acted instantly on that information. The scowl he wished to retain rested the more easily on his features with this revulsion of feeling.
“I’d be sorry to miss a hanging,” he said, half to himself, and he allowed his eye to wander again from the dangling noose to the shrinking group of Frenchmen who were still ignorant of what had just happened. “If that thick neck were stretched a little —”
He broke off and took a brief turn up and down the deck, eyed by every man who stood on it.
“Very well,” he said, halting. “It’s against my better judgment, but I’ll wait before I hang these men. What was the approximate bearing of that trawler when she anchored, captain?”
“It was at slack water,” began the captain, making his calculations. “We were just beginning to swing. I should say —”
The captain was obviously a man of sober judgment and keen observation. Hornblower listened to what he had to say.
“Very well,” said Hornblower when he had finished. “Leadbitter, I’ll leave you on board with two men. Keep an eye on these prisoners and see they don’t retake the brig. I’m returning to the ship now. Wait here for further orders.”
He went down into his gig; the captain accompanying him to the ship’s side was clearly and gratifyingly puzzled. It was almost beyond his belief that Hornblower could be the demoniac monster that he had appeared to be, and if he were it was strange good fortune that his ferocity should have obtained, by pure chance, the information that the prisoners had just given him. Yet on the other hand it was almost beyond his belief that if Hornblower had employed a clever ruse to gain the information he should refuse to enjoy the plaudits of his audience and not to bask in their surprise and admiration. Either notion was puzzling. That was well. Let him be puzzled. Let them all be puzzled — although it seemed as if the sobered hands pulling at the oars of the gig were not at all puzzled. Unheeding of all that had been at stake they were clearly convinced that their captain had shown himself in his true colours, and was a man who would sooner see a man’s death agonies than eat his dinner. Let ’em think so. It would do no harm. Hornblower could spare them no thought in any case, with all his attention glued upon the compass card. It would be ludicrous — it would be horribly comic — if after all this he were to miss Atropos on his way back to her, if he were to blunder about in the fog for hours looking for his own ship. The reciprocal of North by East half East was South by West half West, and he kept the gig rigidly on that course. With what still remained of the ebb tide behind them it would only be a few seconds before they ought to sight Atropos. It was a very great comfort when they did.