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"You know, madam—Miss Acton—Lucy—my Lucy—that I am a man of broken fortunes. I have struggled hard to retrieve the past, but the world is full, and I have been unable to find room in it. You came in my way. I adored your beauty, and worshipped you for your character. You would not accept my hand, but I felt in my secret soul that I was not indifferent to you—nay, that if I could advance higher claims than those of a broken lieutenant and a man with the[Pg 254] reputation of being a gambler and a drunkard, you would have listened to me, you would have consented. Nor would your father have objected, for he loves our service, and his partiality for Sir William would have helped me. I determined to win you, no matter the machinery I might set in motion. I was determined to escape the horrible trouble of bankruptcy, and the intolerable menace of a debtor's gaol, by carrying this ship to a port and there selling her and her cargo through the agency of a man who is known to me, and with the money thus got, I mean to pay off all my creditors in England, and return with you as my wife, assured of Captain Acton's forgiveness for your sake, and equally assured of his approval, as it is my intention to hoist the flag of honour as high as my father has mastheaded it, to be a gentleman, to live as a gentleman, and to be deemed by the part I hope to play in the drama of life, worthy of being the husband of Lucy Acton, and the son-in-law of her gallant, generous, noble-hearted father.",

Of this man, a toothless salt whose face was like an old potato, dark with the weather of[Pg 34] vanished days and covered with warts, an affecting story was told: it was evening, and the room was full of seafaring men, and this man, whose name was John Halliburton, sat at the table with a long clay pipe trembling in one hand and a glass of hot rum and water in reach of the other. Several songs had been sung by members of the company, and some one, by way of a joke, asked old John to oblige. To the amazement of everybody the old man put down his pipe, took off his hat, out of which he drew a large red handkerchief with which he polished his face, and then, fixing his lustreless eyes upon the man who had asked him to sing, broke into a song in a strange, quivering, fitful note, as though you should hear a drunken sailor singing in a vault. The assembly was hushed into deep stillness. It was certainly a most unparalleled circumstance for old John to sing. In the middle of the second verse, some old nautical ballad popular fifty years before, he stopped, put his handkerchief into his hat, and his hat upon his head, and resumed his pipe, gazing vacantly at the man who had asked him to sing.,

"I'm not asking you for any opinion, nor will any view that you can take concern me. You have the facts, and you will repeat them to the crew, to some of whom she may probably appeal, as indeed I have advised, that her pretended situation may seem the more real, and Captain Acton by such evidence be more fully convinced. You and the crew will know what to think. It is simply a love affair and my own and the lady's business essentially," and he stopped in his quarterdeck walk, causing his companion to stop, and flamed threats from a pair of eyes as imperious as ever glared command upon another.,

"British or French?" enquired Captain Acton, letting his glass sink whilst he looked at his companions. "Before we sailed the news had got about that Villeneuve meant to[Pg 392] go for the West Indies. It may be his ships returning." He pointed his glass again, and counted: "Eleven sail of the line and three frigates."

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The tears came to the old man's eyes as he felt the sincere pressure of the hands held out to him. "Begobs! but ut's a foine pair ye be," he muttered. Then aloud. "And have ye told him, Billy?",

"Nelson!" cried Captain Acton, in a voice subdued by reverence for the name it pronounced, addressing his daughter. "We must run down and have a look at him. The deviation need not be above two or three miles, which will not cause us to lose sight of the Minorca by diverting us from her track. Make all sail again, Captain Weaver, and head for that flag-ship. You can see her: she is to windward of the ship with the stun-sails.",

"Are you doing anything to ease your suffering?",

"Not yourn? Then whose is it?" she cried in amazement.