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"Oh yes, your honour, I've been to sea," answered Paul with prodigious earnestness. "I've been in smacks. I've knocked about all my life in boats belonging to this Harbour. Sick! No fear, your honour. I'll sarve you for nothing.",

"They would, I s'pose," laughed Billy as he stepped out, followed by Moll, the little spaniel, "but these three don't have to keep long; you see we're goin' to have these fer dinner.",

It would be impossible to describe the feelings, sensations, passions of three of the principal actors in this story. Who can analyse human emotion when its state is one of almost chaotic conflict? Sir William Lawrence being satisfied that the sail ahead was Captain Acton's barque, fixed his face in a mask iron-hard with resolution to endure, come what would. His answers were short, and to the[Pg 429] point. He had little to say. His tendency to the garrulity of old age had temporarily withered; he was as grim and reserved as though he commanded a line-of-battle ship, whose stern-walk was exclusively his promenade. He was an old sailor and a gentleman: he prided himself upon his descent; he greatly loved honour and loyalty, which is the spirit of honour, and above all, he loved truth. Yonder was his son in charge of a ship he was endeavouring to steal from his benefactor; he had by a base stratagem kidnapped the sweet and beautiful daughter of his friend; he had proved himself a liar, a thief, a scoundrel in the most voluminous sense of the word. The people of the frigate commanded by Lord Garlies might, doubtless must, come to hear all about his wrongdoing, and through them the story would leak with plenty of colour and plenty of exaggeration, into every ward-room and gun-room and cockpit in His Majesty's Service. These were thoughts and considerations to hold the Admiral austerely silent, and keep him to himself whilst the chase continued.,

"The bedrooms are very small," said Mr Lawrence, going to the berth that confronted the aftermost end of the cabin table and [Pg 99]opening the door. "But at sea any little hole is good enough to stow oneself away in. Amongst other things, a sailor learns how to sleep, and the habit is so strong with me of slumbering anywhere that if there was room for me I believe I could sleep in a hawse-pipe when the ship is pitching bows under."

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She continued at one moment smiling her idiot smile, at another moment frowning her madwoman's frown, whilst he spoke. Then looking up she seemed to perceive him for the first time, sprang erect with a wonderful convulsion of terror in her whole form, and a sharp, short, piercing shriek of distress.,

"Why, sir, do not you think that a great deal of nonsense is talked by young men and old men to young women? But I believe your father will be glad to see you. I may have a reason to suppose he is waiting for you to return. Here we part, Mr Lawrence, and I wish you a good morning," and, sinking her figure in a curtsy fashionable in those days, she crossed the road and went down the little flight of wooden steps that led to the path by the river's bank and so to Old Harbour.,

"Lord Garlies, I am sure, will be happy to[Pg 423] oblige you, Sir William, and your friend, in any way he can," said the lieutenant. "Pray, how did you happen to hear of the seizure of the ship and her shift of course to Rio?",

"I'll be with you in a minute. She is too far off, I suppose, for the glass to resolve her."