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"When?",

CHAPTER IX MR GREYQUILL'S VISIT,

"'Cause he—he wants Erie," said the boy, miserably, "an she won't marry him. We've wondered why he's been holdin' the schooner close in. So we been watchin' Hinter. An' one night we follered him down the bar to the pines, an' we seen him signal the schooner. He built a little fire on the shore.,

It was not very long before the eleven sail of the line with their attendant frigates were swelling large, bristling, and close to the Aurora, at whose signal halliards stood two sailors who dipped to such battle-ships as the schooner passed receiving the acknowledgment of small ensigns gaff-ended, and then hauled down to be hoisted no more. The picture was full of a grandeur that borrowed majesty from the sense of the power and the empire[Pg 397] the ships symbolised. They were lordly in slow motion; they bowed to the swell as though in lofty homage to their mistress the sea; they were terrible in triple rows of cannon and by virtue of the traditional magnificent spirit, silent and concealed behind their lofty and invincible defences. It was the breakfast hour, but the people aboard the Aurora were very willing to wait to break their fast. Not a man but was fascinated by the sight and presence of that tall, majestic ship out there, with the little flag at the fore. For Nelson—the Nelson of the North, of Aboukir Bay, of Teneriffe, of St Vincent, the Nelson of a hundred wounds, the first of all sea chieftains in the history of the world, Nelson, the truest sailor, the kindest shipmate, the man of the purest and loftiest spirit of chivalry and patriotism that ever stepped the planks of a ship's decks—this great, this sublime hero, to be even greater and sublimer in his victorious and immortal death a few months later—Nelson was in her!

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Though Mr Lawrence had communicated the intelligence of the girl being on board and of his holding sealed orders from Captain[Pg 270] Acton in confidence to Mr Eagle, the sensations excited in this plain and acid sailor by the extraordinary, astounding, and unexpected revelations had filled him to bursting point with a fever and passion for giving the news. In short, the man's mind was much too small to retain what had been poured into it, and of course it overflowed. To whom other than Tom Pledge could he speak? Pledge and he had sailed in Captain Acton's employ for two or three voyages; they were friends, and visited each other ashore where each had a little cottage and a wife. So after a careful survey of the skylight, which lay open just above the table, and a cautious look round, Mr Eagle said: "Tom, did you observe me and the Capt'n walkin' up and down this morning in conversation?",

Frank nodded. "A beam struck me," he whispered, "I thought—I thought—",

From the bottom of his heart he wished that he had never seen the place, never encountered the spirit of its woods-born. He knew his capabilities and for once in his life, he confessed to himself, he had over-estimated them. He wanted to give this boy now standing so fearlessly before him a whipping such as he would remember to his dying day, but to save his life he couldn't enter into the task with his old-time zest—not with those clear eyes looking so contemptuously into his very soul.,

Scarcely had the old gentleman pronounced these words when a footman, throwing open the door, exclaimed: "Mr Greyquill presents his humble respects to Captain Acton, and desires leave to speak with him."