Asiatic Breezes by Oliver Optic

Captain Scott was ready to do anything the occasion might require. Possibly he would not have been sorry to come into collision with Captain Mazagan and his piratical craft, judging from what he had said to Louis Belgrave, and he had pluck enough to precipitate a conflict with the enemy; but sometimes it requires more courage to keep out of a fight than to plunge into one.

As he had admitted himself, Louis was his model; and he felt that no rashness, no braggadocio, no challenging, no casting down the gage of battle to the pirate who had already outlawed himself, no holding out of a temptation to cross swords with him, would be justified or palliated when he came to render an account of his conduct in what was yet to occur to the commander of the Guardian-Mother.