Now, let us divide the liberal breakfast our captors have given us; fortunately there is just enough light coming down from those scuttles to enable us to do so fairly." There was a general laugh, from his comrades, at the cheerful way in which Francis spoke.

Only one of them had been an officer on the Pluto.
The rest were, like Matteo, volunteers of good families.

There was a good deal of light-hearted jesting over their meal.

When it was over, Francis said: "Now let us hold a council of war." "You are better off than Pisani was, anyhow," one of the young men said, "for you are not hampered with proveditors, and anything that your captaincy may suggest will, you may be sure, receive our assent." "I am your captain no longer," Francis replied.

"We are all prisoners now, and equal, and each one has a free voice and a free vote." "Then I give my voice and vote at once, Francisco," Matteo said, "to the proposal that you remain our captain, and that we obey you, as cheerfully and willingly as we should if you were on the poop of the Pluto, instead of being in the hold.