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'Twas as pretty a piece of play as you could see: Ben, scheming to get the Frenchman captive; M. Radisson, with the lightnings under his brows and that dare-devil rashness of his blood tempting him to spy out the lad's strength. "Ben was the body of the venture! Where was the brain? It was that took me aboard his ship," M. Radisson afterward confessed to us. "Come! Come!" pressed Gillam.
It was morning, but the black of night had given place to the white darkness of northern storm. Ben Gillam jerked up sober and grasped an idle pole to lend a hand. Through the whirl of spray M. Radisson's figure loomed black at the bow, and above the boom of tumbling waves came the grinding as of an earthquake. "We are lost! We are lost!" shrieked Gillam in panic, cowering back to the stern.
Sydney Burr, rather pale, was among them, and was, perhaps, the happiest of all. The bench whereon the substitutes sat was one long grin from end to end. But Robinson was far from being beaten, and the game went on. Again the tandem was hurled at the same point, and again Gillam met the shock of it.
Inspired by the jealous Company of the North, he refused to grant Radisson prize money for the capture of the contraband ship, restored the vessel to Gillam, and gave him clearance to sail for Boston. For this La Barre was sharply reprimanded from France; but the reprimand did not mend the broken fortunes of the two explorers, who had given their lives for the extension of the French domain.
You are not talking to a stripling!" "I had thought I was and a very fool of a booby, too," answered M. Radisson coolly. "Sir!" roared young Gillam with a rumbling of oaths, and he fumbled his sword. But his sword had not left the scabbard before M. de Radisson sent it spinning through mid-air into the sea.
So Ben Gillam must take M. Radisson aboard the Susan, or Garden, as she was called when she sailed different colours, the young fellow with a wry face, the Frenchman, all gaiety. As the two leaders mounted the companion-ladder, hostages came towards the beach to join us.
The problem of finding a man for the position of left half in place of Neil had finally been solved by moving Paul over there from the other side and giving his place to Gillam, a last year substitute. Paul's style of play was very similar to Neil's. He was sure on his feet, a hard, fast runner, and his line-plunging was often brilliant and effective.
No formal organization or charter yet exists, but it is evident that the gentlemen are bent on some enterprise, for Peter Romulus is engaged as surgeon and Thomas Gorst as secretary. Gillam of Boston is hired as captain, along with a Captain Stannard. At a merry dinner of the gay gentlemen at the Exchange, Captain Gillam presents a bill of five shillings for 'a rat-catcher' for the ships.
"Split me fore and aft if it's Indians he wants! He could send up river for them. It's some one as came from his father's ship outside Boston when Master Ben sailed for the north and Captain Gillam was agoing home to England with Mistress Hortense in his ship.
What with the marines and the common soldiers and my own guard, 'tis all I can manage to keep the rascals in hand! They must not know you are here!" Gillam muttered something of a treaty of truce for the winter. M. Radisson shook his head. "I have scarce the support to do as I will," he protests. Young Gillam swore such coolness was scurvy treatment for an old friend.
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