Down sank a boat from the davits with a lieutenant in the stern sheets, and six sailors to pull her, and in a dozen strokes of the blades feathering in fire to the sunlight and dropping jewels of brilliant dyes ere they were buried for the next foaming impulse, the boat was alongside the schooner. The lieutenant mounted the short length of steps which had been flung over through the open gangway and saluted the little ship as all sea-gentlemen do, or should, when they step aboard a vessel, even though she should be as mean as an Irish hooker.,
It was a very fine, clear, sparkling May morning far down in the English Channel, and still the sea stretched desolate to its dim blue recesses: which, had all been right with Mr Lawrence, would have pleased him very much indeed, but he had something else to think of. The waters frolicked in little sliding runs; it was a chasing dance of waters with the billows pointing their white satin shoes under their brilliant skirts of liquid blue. Mr Lawrence walked the deck, and seemed to be keeping a bright look-out as he swept the horizon with the glass he had brought with him, and often his stern, haughty, and[Pg 315] handsome face was directed towards the men, who seemed to know that a vigilant eye had hove into view through the companion, and they clapped a fresh colour of activity into those motions of limbs which accompanied their labours.,
Only a little bit of sea lay within his sight; that which he had seen ran in blue ripples between the points of cliff which framed the entrance to Old Harbour. Though the[Pg 167] scene was distant, his sight, for a man of advanced age, was fairly good, and even all that distance off, he could without much difficulty distinguish the fine lines of the Aurora's masts bearing their trucks high above the spars and rigging of the vessels abaft and ahead of her..
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