She delivered the same wild, screaming laugh which had before filled the cabin with its insane music, and said, dropping her note into one of plaintiveness, whilst she extended her skirt with both hands as though she was about to make a step or two in a dance: "Think of poor Lucy Acton in rags! Think of the lady who was notable, before a liar and a rogue stole her from her father, for her fine dresses and modish hats and bonnets; oh, think of her"—she paused to sigh deeply—"in rags, a prisoner in a ship owned by her father, who would kill the wretch that tore her from his side!",
She was a little brig, and an immense but ragged British ensign fluttered at her trysail gaff-end. She had been painted black, but the fret of an ocean long kept, the hurl and whirl of prodigious seas which were like to founder her, the blistering heat of tropic suns,[Pg 352] the viewless fangs of the wind had so worn her sides that she was mottled with patches of different colour as though she was suffering from some distemper which ravaged vessels of her sort when the voyage was of great length. She rolled wearily, as though her old bones were worn out, and every time she hove her bilge to the eye she disclosed a very landed estate of weed, long, serpentine, trailing, like the huge eel-like growths which sway from black rocks in the white wash of breakers.,
"I don't care a damn about your astonishment, Mr Eagle!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence with haughty severity. "I want you to understand that Miss Lucy Acton is on board this[Pg 239] ship, and I desire that you will regulate your behaviour by thoroughly understanding the facts which I am going to do you the honour to impart.".
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