A voyage of three days, unmarred by any accident, brought the victorious squadron into Charles Town harbor. Joy knew no bounds among the merchants and seamen along the docks. Indeed, the rejoicing spread through the town to the tune of church bells and the whole colony was soon made aware of Rhett's victory.
When the buccaneers had been taken ashore under a heavy guard and locked up in the public watchhouse, Mr. Curtis and Bob, with Job and Jeremy, went ashore to stretch their legs. It was a fine, fall day, warm as midsummer to Jeremy's way of thinking. The docks were fascinatingly full of merchandise. Great hogsheads of molasses and rum from Jamaica, set ashore from newly arrived ships, shouldered for room with baled cotton and boxes of tobacco ready to be loaded. There was a smell of spices and hot tar where the sun beat down on the white decks and tall spars of the shipping. Negroes, hitherto almost unknown to the Yankee boy, handled bales and barrels on the wharves, their gleaming black bodies naked to the waist.
Planters from the fertile country behind the town rode in with their attendant black boys, and gathered at the coffee-houses on King Charles Street. It was to one of these, the "Scarlet Fish," that the bluff Delaware man took his protégés for dinner.
The place was resplendent with polished deal and shining pewter. Curtains of brightly colored stuff hung at the high square windows, and on the side where the sun entered, pots of flowers stood in the broad window-shelves. There were gay groups of men at the tables, and talk of the pirates was going everywhere over the Madeira and chocolate. It seemed the news of Job's gunnery had been spread by Rhett's men, for some of the diners recognized and pointed to him. A pretty barmaid, with dimples in her elbows, curtsied low as she set down his cup. "Oh, yes, Captain Howland!" she answered as he gave his order, blushed a deep pink and ran to the kitchen. Whereupon Job, quite overcome, vowed that the ladies of Carolina were the fairest in the world, and Mr. Curtis roared heartily, saying that "Captain Howland" it should be, and that before many months, if he knew a good seadog.
As they sat and sipped their coffee after a meal that reflected glory upon the cook of the "Scarlet Fish," Colonel Rhett came in and made his way to their table through a hurly-burly of back-slappings and "Bravos." As soon as he was able to sit down in peace, he drew Mr. Curtis a little aside to talk in private. The two boys were content to watch the changing scene and listen to the hearty badinage of the fashionable young blades about the tables. It was, you must remember, Jeremy's first experience of luxury, unless the good, clean quarters and wholesome meals aboard the _Queen_ could be so called. He had never read any book except the Bible, had never seen more than a half-dozen pictures in his life. From these and from the conversation of backwoodsmen and, more recently, of pirates, he had been forced to form all his conceptions of the world outside of his own experience. It is a tribute to his clean traditions and sturdy self-reliance that he sat unabashed, pleased with the color, the gayety, the richness, but able still to distinguish the fine things from the sham, the honest things from those which only appeared honest--to feel a thrill of pride in his father's hard, rough-hewn life and his own.