Just as the sun rose the Admiral came on deck, and as the old gentleman stepped over the coaming of the sunk door of the deck-house and mounted the two or three steps that carried him on deck, the man on the topgallant yard, with his telescope shooting straight from his eye into the south-west quarter of the sea, bawled: "On deck there! Two sail, a point and a half on the starboard bow.",
Whilst this singular conversation was being conducted in the cabin, a scene in the tragicomedy of which this book is the relation was being prepared on deck. The convoy on the starboard bow had considerably risen and was scattering, and flags from the armed fabrics which watched the vessels streamed at gaff end and mizzen royal mast-head in signal to the slow sailers and to other ships whose blockheads of masters, indifferent to the safety of the bottoms they commanded, acted without reference to the possibility of the enemy heaving into view, and some of them with the contemptible determination to prove their independence by giving the commodore and the naval officers in the other ships as much trouble and annoyance as skilless seamanship could provide.,
Mr Lawrence's face lighted up, but the expression was curious; it was composite; it seemed to be lacking in the elementary quality[Pg 58] of exultation or rejoicing which naturally would have been sought for or expected..
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