"The French Flotilla!" exclaimed Miss Acton. "In sight, do you say?",
Captain Weaver was carrying out the instructions he had received at Old Harbour Town. He was chasing the Minorca. The recovery of Lucy had led to no change in those instructions. Though Captain Acton in his gratitude for the restoration of his child was willing to relinquish the pursuit and to leave the Minorca and the handsome piratical scoundrel who had sailed away with her and Lucy to their fate, he had not revealed his thoughts to Captain Weaver, nor to the Admiral, and the Aurora at this hour of daybreak on a day in June 1805, was steadily stemming in chase of the barque which she was to capture, Captain Weaver did not exactly know how. For the Aurora was unarmed, whilst the Minorca mounted four pieces of artillery, and was in command of a naturally desperate fighting and fearless spirit, one whose neck would certainly be broken by the hangman if he was taken: unless indeed his crew turned upon him, and backed their yards and stopped the ship, that her owner might come by his own, despite Mr Lawrence's levelled[Pg 390] pistol or any threats he might make use of in reference to the powder magazine. "But," Captain Weaver had thought to himself on several occasions, "time enough to know what's a-going to happen when we heave the Minorca into view or draw abreast of her, for who's to tell but that we are bound to miss her, in which case we shall receive her at Rio, providing her skipper hasn't got scent of us and shifted his hellum for another port, and then there can be no blazing away of carronades on one side and a trimming of sail to keep clear of shot on the other.",
They had arranged to drive as far as the bridge, where they would quit the carriage and walk along the wharves to view the Aurora and give the sulphur to Mr Eagle. But there were several places to be visited first of all: Mrs Bigg was to be enquired after; a little basket of comforts in the shape of tea, sugar, and the like was to be left at Mrs Lavender's, whose husband had fallen into a disused pit, and after lying in it all night, during which it rained heavily and continuously, he was discovered by a boy, and later on hauled up with both his legs broken. Several such errands of kindness and compassion must render the drive to the bridge circuitous..
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