Mr Lawrence rushed back to his cabin, whence he took from a shelf a telescope of uncommon power for those times, the gift of no less a man than Captain Acton after intelligence had been brought to him of a particular heroic piece of behaviour on the part of Mr Lawrence. With this telescope he sprang on to the deck, and levelling it at the sea over the lee bow, viewed in the lenses the picture of a large man-of-war with two white bands broken by gun-ports. She was far away, yet not so distant but that a[Pg 292] hand's breadth of her black side could be seen shivering in mirage betwixt the lower white band and the wool-white tremble of water running aft. All the men of the Minorca were on deck at work here and there. They looked at Mr Lawrence as with levelled telescope he stood on the quarterdeck viewing the distant battleship. They all belonged to Old Harbour Town; all had heard of him, and a few knew him by sight. They were members of a group of inhabitants who felt that the presence amongst them of a man whose sea story though brief was brilliant did them and Old Harbour Town honour, and they regarded him as he stood with the glass at his eye, as though they should say, "Yon's a man-o'-war, and she may be a Johnny; but there's the Jack who will know what to do with her." And, may be, some of those who thus reflected cast their eyes upon the figure of Mr Eagle, who stood near enough to the Captain to enable the sight to master the details of a very striking contrast.,
"I know, sir," she exclaimed with the vehement indignation and contempt conveyed by that perfection of art which conceals art and which is a gift of intuition beyond the reach of those not born with it, "that Sir William Lawrence has a son, and that he was dismissed from the Navy for a brutal, drunken outrage of which he alone, of all the gentlemen and officers in the Service, was capable.",
The cows waded to shore slowly, pausing to brush the troublesome flies from bulging sides with moist noses, halting to drink again and again, loath to leave this great body of cool delicious water. Billy did not hurry them. He thought he understood their feelings in the matter. It would be a long while before they would have a chance to drink again. It must be awful, he reasoned, to have to do without a drink so long. The thought made him thirsty. With his hands he scooped a hole close to the edge of the lake, and slowly the miniature well filled with milky water, which immediately cleared, and lay before him limpid and sweet and fit for king or thirsty boy..
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