the sword was heavy!

CHAPTER IV

In the Vier Marchi the French flag was flying, French troops occupied
it, French sentries guarded the five streets entering into it.
Rullecour, the French adventurer, held the Lieutenant-Governor of the
isle captive in the Cohue Royale; and by threats of fire and pillage
thought to force capitulation. For his final argument he took the
Governor to the doorway, and showed him two hundred soldiers with
lighted torches ready to fire the town.

When the French soldiers first entered the Vier Marchi there was Dormy
Jamais on the roof of the Cohue Royale, calmly munching his bread. When
he saw Rullecour and the Governor appear, he chuckled to himself, and
said, in Jersey patois: "I vaut mux alouonyi l'bras que l'co," which
is to say: It is better to stretch the arm than the neck. The Governor
would have done more wisely, he thought, to believe the poor beganne,
and to have risen earlier. Dormy Jamais had a poor opinion of a governor
who slept. He himself was not a governor, yet was he not always awake?
He had gone before dawn to the Governor's house, had knocked, had given
Ranulph Delagarde's message, had been called a dirty buzard, and been
sent away by the crusty, incredulous servant. Then he had gone to the
Hospital Barracks, was there iniquitously called a lousy toad, and had
been driven off with his quartern loaf, muttering through the dough the
island proverb "While the mariner swigs the tide rises."

Had the Governor remained as cool as the poor vagrant, he would not have
shrunk at the sight of the incendiaries, yielded to threats, and signed
the capitulation of the island. But that capitulation being signed, and
notice of it sent to the British troops, with orders to surrender and
bring their arms to the Cohue Royale, it was not cordially received by
the officers in command.

"Je ne comprends pas le francais," said Captain Mulcaster, at Elizabeth
Castle, as he put the letter into his pocket unread.

"The English Governor will be hanged, and the French will burn the
town," responded the envoy. "Let them begin to hang and burn and be
damned, for I'll not surrender the castle or the British flag so long as
I've a man to defend it, to please anybody!" answered Mulcaster.

"We shall return in numbers," said the Frenchman, threateningly.

"I shall be delighted: we shall have the more to kill," Mulcaster
replied.

Then the captive Lieutenant-Governor was sent to Major Peirson