dear 1:00 p.m.✵Online Casino: The Perfect Choice for Red Shirt Players!

"That idea has occurred to me," he said, "and I have dismissed it, sir, for what reception would the Commander-in-Chief give such a message as you propose? The master of a ship, who is fully empowered to act in the interests of his owners, chooses to leave a certain harbour some hours earlier than the[Pg 182] time announced. The reason he gives is that there is a Frenchman in the neighbourhood whom he is anxious to avoid and escape. The Commander-in-Chief's sympathy would be with him in that. It is no case of piracy to ship a pilot, and the mate and crew which the vessel carried last voyage; and besides, sir, would the sloop, corvette, or frigate which the Commander-in-Chief might choose to send, overhaul the Minorca if your son determined that his purpose, whatever it may be, should be prosecuted without interruption? She is certainly as swift as the fastest thing that we have in the Navy, and there is no reason to suppose that any vessel as fast would be despatched in chase. Plymouth is a long distance from this spot, and messengers are not always the rapid people we desire them to be. No, sir, we have to accept the position as it is. The ship has sailed; Mr Lawrence's conduct is unaccountable. We must continue to regard him as the honourable, well-meaning man which I have found him during our association in the matter of this command, and I must await with a certain degree of confidence a letter in which he will communicate the full meaning of what is now unintelligible to us.", Well, the Louisa Ann backed her topsail, and the strangely rigged ship backed her's, and the master of the brig, not choosing to ask too many favours at once, hailed to know if she could spare some fresh water, as they had run to an allowance that was close upon famine. He was received on board by a tall, commanding, handsome man, who, on the arrival of the master of the Louisa Ann, said he was[Pg 357] welcome to a supply of fresh water, and that in return he would ask him to receive a young lady who had gone mad during the voyage from England, and convey her to that country. Her name was Miss Acton. She was a daughter of Captain Acton of Old Harbour Town, and the captain of the Louisa Ann might make sure of a handsome reward for his services from the father. The lady, the tall, handsome man said, had consented to elope with him, and they were to be married at Rio de Janeiro; but she had gone out of her mind. The fine, handsome man felt he could do nothing better than to restore her as soon as possible to her friends. The captain of the brig said that he had but a poor accommodation for a lady of her quality, but wanting the fresh water very badly and likewise reflecting that he might receive a handsome reward, and learning from the fine, handsome man that Miss Acton was by no means violent, but on the contrary gentle and melancholy, he consented., He approached Miss Acton's door. Lucy was seated on a locker under a window, three of which embellished the stern of the Minorca. The ocean as the ship lightly depressed her stern, was visible through this window, a blue field decked with flowers of foam that rose and sank. The large glazed space filled the cabin with light, which trembled with the pulse of the white wake streaming fan-wise, and with the shivering of the sunlight into splinters of diamond brilliance by the fretful motions of the breeze-brushed waters..