It would be impossible to describe the feelings, sensations, passions of three of the principal actors in this story. Who can analyse human emotion when its state is one of almost chaotic conflict? Sir William Lawrence being satisfied that the sail ahead was Captain Acton's barque, fixed his face in a mask iron-hard with resolution to endure, come what would. His answers were short, and to the[Pg 429] point. He had little to say. His tendency to the garrulity of old age had temporarily withered; he was as grim and reserved as though he commanded a line-of-battle ship, whose stern-walk was exclusively his promenade. He was an old sailor and a gentleman: he prided himself upon his descent; he greatly loved honour and loyalty, which is the spirit of honour, and above all, he loved truth. Yonder was his son in charge of a ship he was endeavouring to steal from his benefactor; he had by a base stratagem kidnapped the sweet and beautiful daughter of his friend; he had proved himself a liar, a thief, a scoundrel in the most voluminous sense of the word. The people of the frigate commanded by Lord Garlies might, doubtless must, come to hear all about his wrongdoing, and through them the story would leak with plenty of colour and plenty of exaggeration, into every ward-room and gun-room and cockpit in His Majesty's Service. These were thoughts and considerations to hold the Admiral austerely silent, and keep him to himself whilst the chase continued.,
They were sailing in bright latitudes where the weather is warm, where often the sea rolls in a languid silken swell like the gentle heavings of a carpet of the sheen of satin under-blown, where the stars shine with brilliance and the moon at her full has an almost sun-like power. And very fortunately the two ships were favoured with fine and sparkling days vital with favourable winds. Throughout the daylight hours the two ships held each other steadily in view, the schooner under slightly reduced canvas, and the frigate under a press, and at night each signalled her place by rockets discharged at intervals, so that always when day broke the brace of pursuing structures were found to be either abreast, or almost so, each sunk from the sight of the other to the line of her bulwarks.,
"And it reached straight across through the blackness to you?" she asked..
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