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pq daans fauw Discover the Attractiveness of Asia's Leading Online Casino! "I was down to the lake this evenin'," said the boy, "an' I heard Shipley and Sward talkin' together. They was plannin' a raid on your orchard tonight.","I can make no other answer than this, ma'am," said Captain Weaver. "Suppose she was down on the wharves between half-past seven and eight. Most of the labourers would have been away breakfasting. The few that hung about might not have taken any notice of her, or if one or two did, then they are people we didn't come across to question. Most of the men on board the ships in the Harbour would be in their foc'sles breakfasting and smoking and the like, and those that were on deck, and few enough at that hour, might be thinking of other things than people who were passing by. I don't see how else Miss Lucy Acton's not being seen or noticed can be accounted for.",The Minorca had started early on the morning of 3rd May. The Aurora followed her in pursuit on the 8th May, sailing on the afternoon of that day. Her nimble keel had been delayed by contrary winds, and down to this date—namely, 4th June—she had failed to even approach the average daily speed which Captain Weaver had predicted of her in her chase of the barque. She had met with one adventure only so far: it was sufficiently filled, however, with excitement and danger to suffice for twenty.,"So things went along fer a few years. Then come a letter from England to Roger Stanhope. Frank read it to me. Seems they wanted Stanhope back home, if he was alive; if not they wanted his son to come. Frank didn't even answer that letter. He says to me, 'Mr. Keeler, this spot's good enough fer me.' An' by gosh! he stayed.,He looked attentively at the seals, which were impressed with the Acton crest. He mused for a little while over this document manifestly thinking of other things. Though his brow was knit, his handsome face was a-work with thought. Under that knitted brow the expression of the idea in him came and went. There never could have been a finer study for an artist than this tall and elegant creature, slightly bowed, his beauty lighted up so to speak by the several colours of the moods which inspired him, and which seemed by the occasional movement of his lips to indicate the rehearsal of a passage that was to follow. With an impulse almost passionate as an effect of stern resolution he replaced the tin box, walked out of the berth,[Pg 248] and dangling a key which he had withdrawn from his pocket, stood listening for a few moments at the door of the berth which adjoined the one he had quitted.，"Oh, gollies! Right into their decoys," he groaned. "Now they'll give it to 'em, jest as they're settlin'."，"What's this going to be?" exclaimed the Admiral to Captain Weaver.，"Don't you have nuthin' to do with it, Ma!" he cried. "That Croaker's a witch crow, that's what he is! He's tryin' to tempt you with gold!"Mr Lawrence seemed to read the man's thoughts. Unscrupulous as was this Naval gentleman, he was an extremely clever fellow. Preserving a severe austerity of countenance, a demeanour upon which the word discipline was writ large, he exclaimed: "It is not my intention to ask you if Mr Eagle has broken his faith with me and communicated to you the confidence I imparted to him this morning. You are, sir, by virtue of your rank aboard the ship free of this cabin, and it is therefore desirable that I should trust you. The lady in yonder berth is Miss Lucy Acton, who consented to elope with me, providing it should be understood by all on board that she was being kidnapped or stolen from her home. That this should appear, it was arranged between us that she should be locked up as though she were a prisoner, and then in a day or two I should enlarge her, and she would go amongst the crew and speak of my cunning and stratagem, and her desperate lot in being torn from her father's home. All which would in due course reach her father's ears, and mollify his wrath at her giving me her hand in the existing state of my fortunes, and preserve to her the fortune she must inherit as Captain Acton's[Pg 279] only child. Now, sir," continued Mr Lawrence in his frowning, imperious way, "this is submitted to you in confidence, and it is manifestly my wish that some of the crew should credit her story that they may give the evidence we desire when they are called upon to tell what they know!"

One bright morning in April in that memorable year 1805, Captain Charles Acton, R.N. (retired), stood on his lawn in front of the house watching a gardener who was at work at a flower-bed. He was a slightly-built but tall, very gentleman-like man, one of the last in a crowd to be picked out as a seafarer. He was pale, his nose aquiline, lips thin, and the expression of the mouth firm. He was dressed in a frill shirt, loose cravat of white cambric, red-striped waistcoat, long green coat with a high collar and small cuffs, tight breeches to the ankle buttoned to the middle of the thigh, and top-boots; a rather low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat sat somewhat cocked on his head. His hair was long, without powder, and tied a little way down the back in a sort of tail.,One box fruit-crackers.,"All set," cried Stanhope. "Leave your belt loose so I can hang to it and I'm with you. That's right. Who were they, Billy?",Indeed the chase was now so near that with the unaided vision her men might be seen moving upon her decks, and the Admiral's telescope was levelled at a tall figure that stood solitary and apart upon the barque's quarter, surveying with folded arms and erect carriage the ships which were following him with foam to their hawse-pipes.,"He must go to the dogs," continued the Admiral, "if he lingers on in this neighbourhood. He can get nothing to do here, and idleness brings with it the temptation of drink. I hear of him at 'The Swan.' There he meets Lieutenant Tupman, and they grow merry together, God wot! over recollections. I wish he had Tupman's berth: a cabbage garden and a cottage and a pig-sty, and a gun-brig that is never ready. I wonder the Admiralty keep up this farce of gun-brigs stationed on the coast to guard against what they are never prepared for.",She was kneeling or crouching at the breakfast tray which was upon the deck, and when Mr Lawrence entered, she held in one hand a piece of cold tongue, a bite or two out of which she was eating, and in the other hand a white biscuit. The cup was half-full of tea. She did not lift her eyes when he entered, nor seem to be aware that another occupied the cabin besides herself. She looked at the piece of tongue with a smile which was a miracle of idiotism in its perfect conveyance of no meaning, then bit what was in her mouth, then smiled again; and again as suddenly frowned with a marvellous swiftness of transformation of facial[Pg 318] expression. So that whilst she looked, she appeared idiotic in one instant, in the next she wore a strange and alarming look of angry madness, dreadful to witness, working in her lineaments so sweetly feminine, so purely gentle.,"I have heard nothing of her, sister. Nobody saw her on the wharf at the time the Minorca sailed, and there was plenty about, labourers ashore, and sailors in the ships.","If the Minorca won't heave-to after catching sight of us in the boat," said Captain Acton, "we must return to the Aurora and follow her. Then, as I have said, we must head under a full press for Rio.","And that's where Harry found the stolen stuff," mused Wilson. "What else, Billy?",Mr Lawrence viewed the old lady with silent astonishment.,"You are a sailor, sir, and so am I, and 'tis natural that we should both light upon the same scheme. But there is not the slightest occasion for you to sacrifice a farthing of your property, nor to post to London to-morrow to find a ship, some little schooner or other swift enough to enable you to be at Rio when the Minorca arrives. Such a ship," he said, his face brightening a little[Pg 220] with an expression of triumph, "I possess in the Aurora. She has discharged her lading. She can be ballasted at once, and if a crew can be assembled by this time to-morrow evening, I may be far down Channel in such pursuit as must make the barque's chances of escape hopeless, unless indeed she eludes me in the night, or in thick weather, in which case I shall thrash on and be at Rio a week before she enters the Harbour.",This cool indifference on the part of the lieutenants in command of the brigs is rendered the more surprising by contrast with the sincere terrors which the prospect of invasion raised in the country. The alarm indeed was very seriously justified, for in that year the French Emperor had at his disposal at the Texel, Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne and Havre, a total of one hundred and eighty thousand men, with a fleet of twenty-one sail of the line, besides frigates and transports at Brest, a squadron at Rochefort, and a powerful fleet at Toulon, and at this time Spain had joined her forces with those of France against us. Nevertheless the lieutenants in charge of the gun-brigs stationed on the coasts took life with that unconcern which is one of the blessings of peace; they cultivated their cabbage gardens, they attended to their pig-stys, and they smoked their pipes and drank strong beer at taverns with sounding names such as "The Coach and Horses," or "The Maid and the Harp"; and one of the worst offenders was[Pg 28] Lieutenant Tupman of the brig Saucy, which lay within gun-shot of where Lucy stood..