Whilst he walked Mr Lawrence came up from the cabin through the companion-hatch, and after standing a few moments looking about him, he stepped to the side of Mr Eagle. The contrast between the two men was remarkable. You could scarcely have believed that they belonged to the same nation. Mr Lawrence's tall, elegant, and dignified figure towered above the poor, unshapely conformation of Eagle; his handsome face wore an expression of haughtiness, distance, and reserve. Both Mr Eagle and the boatswain, named Thomas Pledge, who[Pg 237] acted as second mate, and the rest of the crew had already discovered that their captain perfectly well understood and remembered that he had been an officer in the Royal Navy, a sailor of His Majesty the King, that comparatively brief as his story was it was brilliant with heroic incident and adventure, and that instead of being greatly obliged to Captain Acton for this command, he considered that he was acting with a very uncommon degree of condescension in taking charge of a merchant vessel, unless indeed she was a prize to his man-o'-war.,
Here the conversation was stayed for a minute or two by the entrance of a footman with a tray of sandwiches and cakes, and ale for Captain Weaver, and wine, and the like.,
It was two bells in the afternoon watch—one o'clock—at which hour the frigate and the schooner had closed each other. By this time the ship ahead had been raised to a full sight of her hull. But long before this she had been made out as the Minorca, by that unmistakable signal of her character—the fore-and-aft canvas on her mizzen- and top-masts. The breeze was steady. All three ships heeled to it. The frigate foamed bending under studding sails, the schooner under all the canvas she could set, and the barque leaned under the heavy strain of every cloth she carried..
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