D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 87: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

78 The Cunning of a Sea Dog. more prorminent than the next or the farthest. What could a community ‘be without governor, elder, dean? “Head man?” said his mentor, the modest Pedro, “no! but we have a headsman, as you would see if you could see a traitor among us.” So D’Artagnan enlarged his field, each time he resumed his investigations, after the return to the Petrel, where the negress placidly reigned alone over her fire, like a seeker after potable gold over his athanor or perpetual furnace. As the little smack was rarely three days off soundings, he shipped on larger ones, always with Pedro, his “blood brother.” They carried cured fish to exchange for native produce along the Algerian coast, making mock of the corsairs, and “passed” closely-packed goods ashore in Spain under the noses of the coast guards, conveniently going blind. “T could swear that they were ammunition cases,” thought the musketeer. ‘‘Ho, ho! those whom I heard in the interior declare in a bated breath that with arms they would stir up a fire the king could not put down— they will have their boast put to the test!” One time, homeward bound, D’Artagnan suddenly slapped his pilot on the shoulder, and said, heartily: “Peccavi! Iam a fool to go a-sea for what lay under my hand! Why, it is you who are steward, if not com- mander-general, of the Brothers of the Coast!” The ex-host laughed as heartily. “T thought you knew it all along, and were playing with your fish!” “T see the cunning of you sea dogs. Would ever your government spy suspect, in a happy-go-lucky, devil-may- care slush-tub like you, the admiral of so imposing a navy! No more than that in your head, seeming to con- fine no more sense than is in a doornail, the faculties oper- ate in perfection which would mar a prince or make a peasant. Pedro, thou art a stone for the temple! thou art read by the sermon in you, as the English poet says whose play I saw ina visit to London.”’ “At the same time, think you I would give all my leisure to trim, shape, and mellow a raw, inapt, intract- able ’prentice like you! By the holy thumb-and-finger Eomichbooks.co