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In the course of a few weeks the Admiral arrived at his little cottage. He was without his son, of whom no news could be obtained. Gossip had ceased to flow when the Minorca[Pg 452] returned, and the tongues of her crew once again opened the flood-gate of talk. But what could they declare that should convict Mr Lawrence of piracy? They said that the Minorca had sailed under secret instructions from Captain Acton which, Mr Lawrence had gathered, imported the sale of the barque at a place named. These instructions were never read to the crew, because she was overhauled by the frigate and the Aurora before the defined parallels of latitude and longitude had been reached. Captain Acton never denied that he had given secret instructions to Mr Lawrence. There was therefore no case against the Admiral's son. And from the statements made by the crew, confirmed by Mr Eagle and Mr Pledge, it was generally held by the honest gossips of Old Harbour Town that between you and them and the bedpost, Miss Lucy Acton had eloped with Mr Lawrence, had so acted as to persuade the crew that she had been abducted, and had been recaptured by her father, whose sole motive in pursuing the barque was to regain his child.,

The old doctor sighed dolefully. "Well, my glasses are gone," he murmured. "And how I will ever do without 'em, I don't know." Then, becoming suddenly aware of his ridiculous position, he stepped ponderously down from the table to his chair.,

"Kowakk," he gurgled, which meant "I thought I knew you, Miss, but I guess I don't.",

But Lucy Acton smiled and curtsied when he passed as usual. Old Miss Acton was nervously polite in her way in her little chirrupy salutations. Captain Acton was sometimes down at the ship, but had nothing to say about the finding of a letter good or bad.

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CHAPTER XII MR LAWRENCE REFLECTS,

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.,

"How standing?" bawled Weaver.,

Captain Acton and Lucy often walked the deck deep in talk. The Captain had decided in his own mind to place Eagle in charge of the Minorca, with orders to proceed to Kingston, providing there was no disaffection[Pg 430] amongst the crew, and Mr Lawrence would be transferred to the Aurora and conveyed to England. What excuses would he plead? What apologies would he offer? What sort of a figure would he make in the sight of his father? in the thoughts of the girl whom in the sacred name of love he had used with such reckless cruelty, as to deprive her of her reason, as he supposed? in the opinion of the kindly gentleman whose confidence he had grossly abused? Would he, when landed in England, consent to ship as a sailor before the mast, and conceal himself for the remainder of his life in a distant land? If not, what would he do? What must be his fate?