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Red gaming logo Top Choice: Asia's Most Reputable Online Casino Today! "I often wish I was at sea again!" exclaimed Sir William, as the two started afresh on their quarterdeck walk. "What a noble, open, hearty, soul-stirring life it is! What good fellows one meets, what brave ships, what splendid crews! It is my hourly regret that my son should be out of it. Though I am his father, I say that this young man had in him—nay, he has in him—all the makings of a fine, dashing, even a great officer. But that devil drink—not that the vice is immoderate with him: but he takes too much; and when the fiend is in him, all that is weak in his nature appears, and he falls: drink—but not so as to justify the word drunkard—drink and gaming—these undid him. He was a favourite with all he sailed with, and yet, through his own accursed folly, he is forced to quit the Navy under circumstances which would bring the moisture into my eyes if half a century of hard weather had not dried all the dampness out of them.",The gate was thrust open and there entered Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, a round-faced, bullet-headed seaman of the old type. He was dressed in a bottle-green coat, metal buttons, red waistcoat, knee breeches and stockings, shoes and large buckles; and being totally bald he wore a wig, perched at the back of which was a little round hat.,Captain Acton and Lucy were strictly reserved—in some directions rigidly silent. Even Aunt Caroline, who had looked carefully after the home, and particularly Lucy's little terrier Mamie, and who swooned away in a bundle of flowered gown and hoop at the sight of her niece, was kept in ignorance of many essential features of this story—where it begins when she steps off the stage—for fear that her tongue should betray more truth to outside ears than it was expedient or desirable they should be made acquainted with.,"Oh, madam," said Mr Lawrence, with a little blush in his face, "I did not intend my poor representation of the fascinations of a voyage to the West Indies for the ear of so experienced a sailor, and so keen an observer as Captain Acton.",Hinter laughed constrainedly. "I've been pretty well through the Settlement, and most of the creeks are like that," he replied. "What do you suppose causes that scum and that peculiar odor?" he asked, casually.，Maddoc was silent for a moment. Then his square chin shot forward.，"Wonderfully dyed fish——" said Lucy.，"Not to my husband, sir, who naturally thought the matter all right, and said he would be on board at half-past seven."Billy bent and patted an imaginary something on the ground. "Good ol' Ringdo," he said. "Nice ol' Ringdo." That was the last straw. With a croak of anguish Croaker swooped down and lit on his master's shoulder. Promptly five fingers gripped his feet.

On which Miss Acton screamed out: "What did I say? Are not my words true? To think of our beloved Lucy imprisoned in a ship! Sailed away with, never to be seen more perhaps, in the hands of—of—oh, what is to be done? What is to be done?",He bowed as though to the applause of an audience, and looked the better pleased with Mr Lawrence for having heard him.,And the worthy old sailor chuckled heartily from his throat to the bottom of his waistcoat.,The boys gazed at each other and Maurice's chuckle echoed Billy's, although it was raspy and hoarse.,He completed his chores and went thoughtfully back up the flower-edged path to the house. "There's one good thing about Mary's crossness," he reflected, "it don't last long. She'll be her old cheerful self ag'in by now.",Mrs. Keeler was bending over a kettle on the stove, from which the aroma of wild thimble-berries came in fragrant puffs.,"You will tell me, sir," said Lucy, addressing the surgeon, "what I am to do, and I will do it. Where is he wounded?",It was not long before the brig that was chasing on the schooner's weather-quarter swelled and paled in distortion with the encompassing thickness, and presently she was a pallid square, and then she became a smudge, after which the rain curtain dropped upon her, and she vanished. Then it was that Captain Weaver luffed the schooner to windward of her course, and she went ahead with flattened-in sheets, leaning to it and severing the flint-coloured billow with her sharp tooth of fore-foot: and so she held on, until, had the weather cleared, the brig, even had she taken in her stun-sails and hauled the wind with yards sweated fore and aft, would have been found dead to leeward and far away beyond all dream of prize money amongst the French crew.,After breakfast Captain Acton and Lucy walked the deck, whilst the Admiral, with his big pipe, seated himself right aft all alone, for this little ship was steered by a wheel in front of the deck-house; he sat puffing out clouds of tobacco with his eyes fixed upon the glimmering phantoms of the British Fleet, which hovered in the north-east quarter in a few dim, waning gleams; and the moods of his mind[Pg 407] were faithfully reproduced in his jolly, honest, well-bred, kindly face.,"I'll be movin' now," he said, as he wiped his mouth on a tattered sleeve. "God kape you safe, Caleb Spencer, an' may yer whisky-barrel niver run dhry.","And did he shoot your quail?" asked Scroggie.,"Where is she?" asked Pledge..