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Billy had heard that when one comes face to face with death the misdeeds of the life about to go out crowd into one brief second of darting reality before one. He had never quite believed it but he believed it now. If only he might have his misspent life to live over again! Never again would he steal Deacon Ringold's melons or swap broken-backed, broken-bladed jack-knives for good ones with the Sand-sharks, nor frighten his brother Anson with tales of witches and goblins. But that chance was not for him. It was, perhaps, natural that his last earthly thought would be of her. Her sweet face shone through the choking mists—her trembling lips were murmuring a last "good bye." Did she know what a wonderful influence her entrance into his heart had exerted toward his reform? With an effort he opened his eyes. The white, gliding thing was almost upon him now. He tried to shake off frozen terror and run. He could not move a muscle. He groaned and shut his eyes tight, waiting for the icy touch of a spirit-hand. It found him after what seemed an eternity of waiting—but it was very soft and warm instead of clammy and cold and the voice which spoke his name was not in the least sepulchral. 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. Anson looked troubled. "Supposin' I don't know—" he began, but Billy shook his head..
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The Admiral drummed with his fingers upon the table, looking down. The decks had been washed down, the ropes coiled away, and everything was neat, sparkling with the swabbed brine from pump or bucket, and the whole a pleasant picture to the eye with its lofty fabric of wide white canvas, its glossy black sides descending into a ruddy coat of copper sheathing which charged the water immediately under with a yellow light as of fire, the canvas forward lifting and drooping in wings of triangular cloth like the pinions of a sea bird that gently flutters its plumes as it slowly breasts the water to the impulse of its webbed feet. Smoke from the chimney of the little galley rose for a space in a straight line, then curved like the liquid column of a fountain. The cook was preparing breakfast for the cabin, and the savoury smell of eggs and bacon in the process of cooking made the scarcely breeze-disturbed atmosphere in the neighbourhood of the schooner's kitchen shore-like and home-like, and in every sense delicious to hungry sailors whose breakfast was[Pg 341] black tea, ship's biscuit, and such remains of yesterday's beef as they might have preserved. "Billy, is ut clane crazy ye've gone?" chided the old man, "that ye'd be afther deafenin' the poor steed wid yer yellin'? Listen now, fer ut's more I'll be tellin' ye." "We'll soon have her back again to her old moorings," cried the Admiral. "She cannot gain in beauty, but the schooner will give her the colour she lacks.".
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