it was on the 4th of june 1805 that a large, handsome three-masted schooner was softly, with a keen cut-water, rending a way for herself over a smooth breast of sea. the sound under the bows was that of a knife shearing through satin, and the note fell softly with a silken noise upon the ear, without tinkle of bell-bubble, or serpent-like hiss of expiring foam. upon the stern of this schooner was painted in long white letters the word aurora.
the breeze was so light that it was scarcely to be felt on deck. the gaff topsails faintly swelled with a summer-like softness and tenderness of gleaming curve and delicately-fingered shadow; but the heavier canvas hung with an occasional sway of boom only, as though the little ship was at rest in a harbour into whose water breathed the slow, low swell of the outer sea.
it was half-past seven in the morning; the[pg 340] sky was blue from line to line, but the monotony of the morning's brilliance of azure was relieved by a few little steam-white clouds which floated small violet island shadows under them. the horizon was a clear line, a sweep of crystal against the blue crystalline heaven it brimmed to.
the decks had been washed down, the ropes coiled away, and everything was neat, sparkling with the swabbed brine from pump or bucket, and the whole a pleasant picture to the eye with its lofty fabric of wide white canvas, its glossy black sides descending into a ruddy coat of copper sheathing which charged the water immediately under with a yellow light as of fire, the canvas forward lifting and drooping in wings of triangular cloth like the pinions of a sea bird that gently flutters its plumes as it slowly breasts the water to the impulse of its webbed feet. smoke from the chimney of the little galley rose for a space in a straight line, then curved like the liquid column of a fountain. the cook was preparing breakfast for the cabin, and the savoury smell of eggs and bacon in the process of cooking made the scarcely breeze-disturbed atmosphere in the neighbourhood of the schooner's kitchen shore-like and home-like, and in every sense delicious to hungry sailors whose breakfast was[pg 341] black tea, ship's biscuit, and such remains of yesterday's beef as they might have preserved.
the minorca had started early on the morning of 3rd may. the aurora followed her in pursuit on the 8th may, sailing on the afternoon of that day. her nimble keel had been delayed by contrary winds, and down to this date—namely, 4th june—she had failed to even approach the average daily speed which captain weaver had predicted of her in her chase of the barque. she had met with one adventure only so far: it was sufficiently filled, however, with excitement and danger to suffice for twenty.
when in the chops of the channel the weather thickened all round: a dingy drizzle of rain curtained the horizon into the distance of a cannon shot, and out of this sullen dimness which was not to be shifted nor broken into spaces showing recesses, the surge came in a steel-dark curve upon whose polished back the foam that fell from the head of the billow cast a deeper gloom filled with raven gleams like water at night. a bright look-out was kept. the aurora under all plain sail sprang through these glooming waters, and the brine swept from her weather-bow in sharp shootings of brilliant hail.
suddenly a little before eleven o'clock in the forenoon the deck was hailed from aloft,[pg 342] and a sail reported three points on the weather-bow. she came out of the thickness like one of the heads of seas, in a shining light of canvas; she was sailing large; she showed herself as an iceberg leaps from the snowstorm of the antarctic ocean. a brig-of-war with foam to the hawse pipes, and the white band along her side broken by guns!
she was within a couple of miles when she shaped herself out of the rain-thickened murkiness. the aurora was making a free wind, and every stitch of canvas was doing its work. was yonder stranger french or english? the admiral and captain acton, who were both on deck, left captain weaver to his own devices, sensible that they were in the hands of a shrewd, well-seasoned, practical sailor, who knew his ship better than they did. "we'll test her," said he, and the tricolour was run aloft. no flag aboard the brig was to be seen in response. the schooner was crossing the stranger's bows when the brig suddenly let fly a shotted gun at her. whatever her nationality it was plain she was not satisfied with the show of bunting flying aboard a vessel that any practised eye could at once see was not of french paternity.
"keep her away three points!" cried captain weaver, which shift of helm would leave the schooner in fuller possession of her[pg 343] powers of flight. and immediately afterwards he shouted: "haul down that lie, and hoist the british ensign! she shall have the truth, and it'll make the truth known to us."
scarcely was the ensign blowing from its halliards when the brig fired a second shot, and as the passage of the aurora and the shifting of her helm had brought the brig's trysail-gaff into view the schooner's crew saw the french flag streaming from the end of it.
immediately the aurora's change of course was perceived the brig trimmed her canvas for a chase; she set stun-sails from lower boom to both topgallant yard-arms; these additional wings threw her out against the weeping gloom in a large, looming, menacing mass irradiated by an occasional flash of bow gun which dyed her canvas with a sudden yellow glare as of lightning. but these explosions were soon stopped, and the pursuit was continued in silence.
it was idle, however, to call it a pursuit. it was a procession with the leader walking fast ahead and the follower lagging. on board the aurora they saw the brig's round bows bursting the surge into sheets of brilliant whiteness which raced under her row of iron teeth like the foaming cascade of a weir; whilst alongside the keen fore-foot and the clean copper and beautifully moulded run of the aurora the[pg 344] brine swept past with no more noise than a shower of rain upon the sea, in a narrow band on either hand which, uniting at the rudder, rushed off in a ribbon of wake that shone like pearl.
it was not long before the brig that was chasing on the schooner's weather-quarter swelled and paled in distortion with the encompassing thickness, and presently she was a pallid square, and then she became a smudge, after which the rain curtain dropped upon her, and she vanished. then it was that captain weaver luffed the schooner to windward of her course, and she went ahead with flattened-in sheets, leaning to it and severing the flint-coloured billow with her sharp tooth of fore-foot: and so she held on, until, had the weather cleared, the brig, even had she taken in her stun-sails and hauled the wind with yards sweated fore and aft, would have been found dead to leeward and far away beyond all dream of prize money amongst the french crew.
"i can't conceive of anything," said captain weaver, smiling with something of pride at the admiral and captain acton, "born—i don't care in what shipwright's yard, whether british or french or roosian or spaniard—as is going to have more than a look at the aurora when it's her pleasure to show nothing but her heels."
[pg 345]
nevertheless it was an adventure fraught with danger to the schooner, and neither the admiral nor captain acton needed to be informed that had the weather been a little thicker and the brig a knot or two faster so that she could have brought the schooner within range of her broad-side, it was odds if the fall of a mast or the ruin of a sail had not resulted in the aurora's company finding a lodging in the brig or under hatches in their own little ship and sailing for the nearest french port, with the pursuit of the minorca immediately ended.
but the essential object of captain weaver and the very first desire of captain acton and the admiral was the overtaking of the minorca, her capture, and the rescue of lucy. to this end it was extremely necessary that they should speak ships to ascertain if the barque whose rig would make her remarkable had been sighted or spoken, and if so when and where? they had fallen in with two or three vessels which after very careful inspection they had considered safe to speak. but they could obtain no information. nothing answering to a ship rigged as the minorca was had been sighted. so captain weaver stuck as best he could to his course for rio, though much hindered by opposing winds. it was to be hoped if the aurora lay fair in the wake[pg 346] of the minorca that the winds which had delayed the schooner had also baffled the barque.
now, as we have seen, the 4th day of june had come, and the aurora, with a light air aloft which put a gentle breathing into her gaff top-sails and lighter canvas, was slowly scoring her way through the heart of a wide circle of atlantic ocean, along which the swell ran gently, whilst the surface at a distance resembled a motionless sheet of ice under a blue sky.
admiral lawrence was walking the deck alone. captain weaver stood on the weather side of the wheel viewing the vessel as she leisurely floated forward. they had kept a look-out aloft with the perseverance of a whaler. the signalman was furnished with a glass with which he continuously swept the sea-line from beam to beam. the admiral, great as his trouble was, looked uncommonly well and hearty. his cheeks wore a deeper dye of colour. he rolled along the deck with enjoyment of the sensation of the plank, whose motions were timed by the sea.
as he rounded in one of his fore-breakfast strolls, captain acton stepped out of the deck-house, for this schooner was furnished with a deck structure a little sunk so that you entered it by a short flight of steps, and in front of it[pg 347] stood the wheel. the house contained six berths each lighted with a window; the foremost larboard berth was the pantry, and next door to it, abutting upon the sleeping place which the admiral occupied, was the spare room for lucy.
captain acton's face as he emerged was grave and pale. his restlessness and anxiety had increased with the voyage and the obstruction of the wind. realisation of the loss of his daughter was a pain in him that was as a wound deeply planted, and there was no remedy but the recovery of the girl. he joined the admiral after looking aloft and around him, and exclaimed: "very slow work, sir. if it's to be this sort of thing the minorca will not find us at rio; and if she fetches rio before we do, my child is lost to me."
"i cannot see that, sir," answered the admiral. "what can my son do? she will not have him, and he must therefore leave her at rio, because i have never imagined that he will be able to sell the barque and her cargo without exciting enquiries which he dare not challenge. if therefore he puts into rio, it will be with the hope of inducing miss lucy to marry him there and promptly—an issue which he will have satisfied himself upon before his arrival. and if, as 'tis certain,[pg 348] she will have nothing to do with him, he will leave her at rio and make haste to sail to where he can dispose of your property without risk. but," he continued cheerily, observing that his companion held his peace, manifestly unconvinced by the admiral's arguments, "we have no right to assume that the weather is always to consist of baffling breezes or light airs like this; and, sir, consider that what is bad for the schooner may—indeed should—be bad for the barque. there is but one course for rio from the port we hail from. i have watched weaver's navigation with anxiety, and have full confidence in his judgment. i have again and again considered his chart and prickings, and in all that he said and says i have agreed, and still agree."
"but," said captain acton in a tone that marked the depression of his spirits, "you must remember that this visible girdle of sea has, even in brilliant weather and from the mast-head, but a narrow width, and we might even now be abreast of the minorca which is sailing yonder, or yonder, hull and spars down to a fathom below the sensible edge."
"we've allowed for that, sir," said the admiral. "'tis a contingency which has had a very full share of contemplation. if we miss her and pass her in the way you[pg 349] suggest, there is still rio to receive us, where we will await the minorca's arrival. and in that you will get your way, and crown this struggle with success. so that let us miss her by failing to sight her as you say, it can but mean that we shall be first and ready for mr lawrence."
"true," answered captain acton.
at that moment the man at the mast-head with the telescope still at his eye, shouted the magic words: "sail ho!"
"where away?" yelled captain weaver from the side of the wheel.
"right ahead, sir."
"how standing?" bawled weaver.
after a brief pause: "coming for us, sir. we are rising her."
but the schooner might be rising her through overtaking her, and nearly a quarter of an hour must elapse before the sailor aloft could shout with emphasis down to the deck that the sail was standing right for them and that she was square rigged.
the circumstance of a sail heaving into sight was necessarily brimful of excitement and interest to captain acton and the admiral. she might prove a peaceful trader or a man-of-war, a friend or an enemy, a privateer, or as likely as not the minorca rolling home in charge of eagle and her[pg 350] crew, who, conscious of the presence of lucy on board, and having learnt that the ship's destination was any port but kingston, had mutinied, and locked up the captain in his cabin, and turned tail for old harbour town.
but the breakfast bell had been rung, and leaving captain weaver and his mate to keep an eye upon the stranger and to act with the prudence which was to be expected of a man of weaver's sagacity and experience, captain acton and his companion entered the deck-house. here was a cheerful little interior, gay with sunshine, which sparkled in the furniture of the breakfast-table, on which smoked as relishable and hearty a meal as was to be obtained at sea in those days. the two gentlemen found much to talk about, and perhaps because of an argument they had fallen into, their sitting was somewhat lengthened: until just when they were about to rise, captain weaver came to the cabin door, and after, with the old-fashioned courtesy of his period, begging their pardon, he exclaimed: "the sail's now clear in the glass from the deck."
"what is she, do you think?" said captain acton.
"she looks to me, sir, a worn-out bit of a brig about a hundred tons. most sartinly there's nothing to be afraid of in her."
[pg 351]
"she's not the minorca?" cried the admiral.
"no, sir, she carries no royals."
on this captain acton and his friend went on deck. the schooner was travelling three or four knots one way, and the stranger was heading directly for her at some small pace, so that the speed of the two vessels being combined, the sail might be expected to show a clear hull; which she did, and with the aid of their telescopes, captain acton and sir william confirmed the conjecture of captain weaver. she was either a little brig or a brigantine—her after-sails were concealed; her burden was very small. the dusty and rusty complexion of her canvas neutralised the brilliance which most ships' sails shine with when the silver glory of the morning sun pours strong upon them. by half-past nine, three bells by the schooner's clock, the stranger was on the larboard-bow with her main topsail to the mast, and so close that it seemed almost possible to distinguish the faces of her people.
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.
"ho, the schooner ahoy!" shouted a man, standing close to the larboard main-shrouds.
"hallo!" was the answer from captain weaver.
"we are the brig louisa ann of whitby from callao, one hundred and seventy days out, bound to the port we belongs to. we are short of provisions, and should feel grateful if you could let us have a cask of beef."
this was clearly delivered, and every syllable caught on board the aurora. captain weaver looked at captain acton, who immediately assented.
"send a boat and we'll give you what you want!" shouted weaver.
a few men were to be seen racing aft, and in a minute or two a squab boat descended from a pair of davits as stout as catheads[pg 353] with four men in her, two to row, one to bale, and one to steer.
whilst they were coming captain weaver said to captain acton: "the master of that brig, sir, seems to have his wife aboard."
but though captain acton and admiral lawrence heard him, their eyes were busy with the boat as she approached, and neither raised a glass to determine the appearance of the female.
the man who steered the boat was the captain; he climbed over the side of the aurora, and presented the aspect of a man not unlike mr john eagle; he looked sour with succession of bad weather, with little ships that made nothing but leeway on a wind, with immensely long voyages, with shortness of rations and fresh water, and with the aridity of the ocean which he had been forced to keep for nearly the whole of his life.
"i should be much obliged for a cask of beef, sir," he said, after touching the narrow penthouse of a queerly constructed fur cap. "it's still a long way home for that there louisa ann, whose bin a hundred and seventy days in bringing us so fur."
"have you spoke any ships lately?" asked captain weaver.
"the last we spoke," answered the man,[pg 354] "was the day before yesterday. and we took out of her by request of her master, a young female who was said to have gone mad, but for my part i never met with anybody saner. she's an additional mouth, and a cask of beef would be grateful."
"a young female!" said captain acton. "what was the name of the vessel you took her from?"
at this point the admiral levelled his glass at the brig. the master of the louisa ann went to the side and shouted down, received an answer, returned and said: "her name was the minorca."
"the minorca!" shouted captain acton. "the day before yesterday! and you received a young lady from her?"
"by god!" cried admiral lawrence in a voice of thunder, letting fly the profanity with the bellows of a boatswain, "why, acton, there's lucy aboard that brig! i can make her out plain in this glass."
"she's a beautiful young lady—highly eddicated," said the master of louisa ann.
captain acton levelled his telescope. he did not need to long survey the figure of the woman who was standing near the tiller that was grasped by a man. the lenses brought her face close to him.
"it is lucy!" he said, in a voice in which[pg 355] awe and amazement were so mingled that one should say the apparition of a ghost, of something spiritual and fearful to the observer, could not have filled the hollow of his mouth with that tone.
he was now seized with a passion of delight.
"lower a boat, captain weaver! lower a boat!" he shouted, losing his habitual gentlemanlike coolness and calm in the overwhelming sensations of that moment. "bear a hand now! be quick! it is the lady for whom we have been chasing the minorca. quick, i say!" he stamped his foot.
"she is waving her handkerchief!" cried the admiral, with his eye at the telescope. "god bless her! god bless us all! what a miracle of discovery!"
"a relation, sir?" said the master of the louisa ann, addressing captain weaver, whom he had immediately perceived was not of the standing of the two naval gentlemen.
"my daughter, sir!" cried captain acton.
"then i'm proud and 'appy to have been the instrument of a-bringing her to you. i'm a father myself and can understand your feelings, sir," said the captain of the brig.
but congratulations were not in place in such a moment as this. a fine boat of the aurora was alongside manned by five sailors, who being clad in much the same sort of[pg 356] apparel, carried a sort of warlike aspect as though the boat was proceeding from something heavily armed and much to be feared. captain acton and the admiral sprang into her with the agility of boys, thanks to the energy infused by the apparition of lucy waving her pocket-handkerchief, and whilst they were being swept to the brig captain weaver asked her master one or two questions.
this was the story his interrogatories elicited. on the day before yesterday the brig that was very short of provisions and water sighted a vessel, which on her approach proved to be so rigged that the master declared he had never seen the like.
"she carried nothing but fore-and-aft sails on her mizzen-mast," said he.
on which captain weaver exclaimed: "the minorca, of course. she was french, and what's called barque-rigged."
well, the louisa ann backed her topsail, and the strangely rigged ship backed her's, and the master of the brig, not choosing to ask too many favours at once, hailed to know if she could spare some fresh water, as they had run to an allowance that was close upon famine. he was received on board by a tall, commanding, handsome man, who, on the arrival of the master of the louisa ann, said he was[pg 357] welcome to a supply of fresh water, and that in return he would ask him to receive a young lady who had gone mad during the voyage from england, and convey her to that country. her name was miss acton. she was a daughter of captain acton of old harbour town, and the captain of the louisa ann might make sure of a handsome reward for his services from the father. the lady, the tall, handsome man said, had consented to elope with him, and they were to be married at rio de janeiro; but she had gone out of her mind. the fine, handsome man felt he could do nothing better than to restore her as soon as possible to her friends. the captain of the brig said that he had but a poor accommodation for a lady of her quality, but wanting the fresh water very badly and likewise reflecting that he might receive a handsome reward, and learning from the fine, handsome man that miss acton was by no means violent, but on the contrary gentle and melancholy, he consented.
"and how did she seem," said captain weaver, "when she got into the boat?"
"she never spoke nor smiled," answered the captain of the brig, "but got quietly in and sat quietly down, and kept her eyes fixed upon the thwart that was next her's whilst the water was being lowered; but afterwards when[pg 358] i got her over the side and put her into the best cabin we could accommodate her with, she began to talk, said she thanked god for her deliverance, and was grateful indeed to him for now being on her way home. and she spoke as clear and collected as i do, and is no more mad than i am. but she did not let me into the job whatever it was. she hasn't given me an idea as to her elopement and the reason of her being sent aboard me, and i'm always a-wondering what the trick is."
the aurora's boat was swept alongside the brig, and captain acton and the admiral clambered over the side up a short flight of steps, and in an instant lucy was clasped in the devouring embrace of her father. such an old-world scene taxes the highest gifts of the pen or the brush. this louisa ann was about fifty years old; she was nearly as broad as she was long. her fore-mast was stepped far in the bows; her decks were stained and grimy; the paint had faded out of the inside of her bulwarks. her sails were patched and so dingy that they might have been coloured as a smack's. her rusty sides were lined with yawning seams amid which three little circular windows were merged with no accentuation from the dirt-shrouded glass which prevented the sea from entering the blistered, worn, mani-coloured hull. her sailors looked as though[pg 359] they were shipwrecked: long-haired, bearded, sallow, in clothes considerably tattered, in aspect melancholy and dejected with lack of nourishment, dullness of sailing and ceaseless motion: for here was the tub wallowing like a buoy in a popple upon a smooth sea, and the frightful weather she would make off cape horn or in a gale of wind the imagination of a sailor could readily picture by witnessing her motions now.
on the stage of this little marine theatre the father clasped his daughter, whilst the admiral, with emotion damp in his eyes, looked on. captain acton released his child and surveyed her, whilst the admiral seizing both her hands, raised them to his lips, one after the other, mumbling in broken tones: "may god bless you! i thank god we have found thee!"
she was dressed, of course, in the costume in which she had been kidnapped, and like the sailors she looked very much the worse for wear and tear. her jockey-shaped hat, so modish and even rakish when purchased, had fallen into a confusion of headgear, a something that might have wanted a name had it been found on the highway. her hair looked wild in the inartistic dressing it suffered from. her rich and characteristic bloom had faded, and what lingered was but[pg 360] as a delicate faint flush of expiring sunset. but even as she stood, not the most cynical and aspish of her own sex would have challenged her beauty, the charms of her figure, the melting sweetness of her eyes on whose dark-brown irids the white lids, rich in eyelash, reposed. those eyes were wet now, and tears were upon her cheeks.
but what was to be said aboard that loutish old brig, with a crew of half-starved, weedy mariners looking on agape? in a very few minutes lucy was handed into the aurora's boat, and the party were making for the schooner as swiftly as the dip and sweep of oars could impel the keen-bowed little fabric.
"what a wonderful meeting!" cried captain acton, blessing his daughter with a smile sweet and good with the pulse of the heart of a father who adores his only child. "you will have much to tell us, my darling."
"much," said the admiral.
"oh yes. it is a story that will make you wonder," said lucy. "i fear aunt caroline was terribly upset when she found me missing."
"oh, we'll soon stand her up again," said captain acton. "did you recognise the aurora?"
"oh yes, sir; how could she be mistaken?"[pg 361] answered lucy. "how beautiful she looked as she came towards us!"
"you have been half-starved in that brig," said captain acton, searching his daughter's face, and running his eyes over her dress.
"we'll soon have her back again to her old moorings," cried the admiral. "she cannot gain in beauty, but the schooner will give her the colour she lacks."
there was very little to be said in that boat where there were five oarsmen to listen. the few of the crew who remained on board the schooner greeted miss lucy's recovery and arrival alongside by springing into the rigging and delivering cheer after cheer with much demonstration of arm and cap. she was carefully handed over the side, captain weaver receiving her, hat in hand and a succession of congratulatory bows, and without more ado she was conducted into the cabin that had been assigned her by her father, who embraced her again and again when he had her alone, saying that she looked tired, that she must take some repose before she began to tell him and the admiral what had happened to her. he held her by the hands. he looked at her face; his affection, his gratitude, his delight overwhelmed him.
"oh, my dear, dear lucy," he cried, "little can you conceive how the man who carried[pg 362] you off has made your aunt and me, and his father, suffer!"
"he acted wickedly in luring me on board only to steal me," said lucy, "and he is wicked to rob you of your property. but oh, father, villain as he seems, his behaviour to me was that of a gentleman—and—and i am sorry for him."
captain acton's face changed with the astonishment wrought in him by his daughter's words and manner of speaking, and instantly to his memory recurred the remark of his sister that, if mr lawrence was in love with lucy, she was equally in love with him, though she made no sign save to the scrutinising eye of an old maid.
"we'll talk of that later, my dear one," he said. "you'll find several changes of apparel in those boxes. i left it to your aunt to pack them. she would know what you needed, though we had no hope of falling in with you in this way. some breakfast shall be got for you in the cabin when you are ready, and then you will tell the admiral and me your story."
after further endearments between this devoted father and his daughter, captain acton closed her cabin door and went on deck.
he found captain weaver, the master of the brig, and the captain of the brig in conversation. the skipper of the brig had made no[pg 363] entry touching his falling in with the minorca. he could depend upon nothing but his memory, and to the best of his recollection he had given to captain weaver the latitude and longitude in which he had spoken the minorca on the morning before the previous day. it was at least certain that the barque was within easy sailing reach of the schooner; it was equally sure that the schooner was almost directly in the tail of the wake of the minorca, and that if captain weaver continued the course he had been steering he was bound to overhaul her, providing the schooner was the swifter vessel.
leaving captain weaver to converse with the skipper and to supply his wants, captain acton passed his arm through the admiral's and led him aft.
"now," said he in a soft voice full of the emotion which his daughter's preservation and restoration had filled him with—"now that my dear child, by the mercy and goodness of almighty god, has been returned to me i am for heading straight for old harbour town, for she has had enough of the sea—more than enough, and i am for having her at home, safe again. she has gone through much, she looks ill, she needs the rest and nursing she can only get at home."
[pg 364]
the admiral was violently agitated. he exclaimed in broken tones: "if this is your decision i implore you to reconsider it. you, sir, who are the soul of benevolence would not act with heartless cruelty towards an old friend, but heartlessly cruel you must prove to me if, with the opportunity which this schooner provides and with the minorca within a few hours' reach, you suffer my worthless, ungrateful son to make away with your property, and render me hopeless and helpless as a man who has no means to repay you the loss you must sustain."
captain acton was silent for a few moments. he then said: "my dear friend, have you reflected upon all that your son's return to england must signify to him?"
"your property must be recovered. my son must take the consequences of his acts. i know what it means, sir—the gibbet and chains—for thus they serve the pirate," exclaimed the poor old admiral, grim and desperate.
"god forbid!" exclaimed captain acton, whose spirits, it could be seen, were suddenly and violently disordered by the admiral's speech. "they hang no pirate without a prosecution. who is to prosecute? admiral lawrence's old friend, captain acton? no, sir, by the holy name of that[pg 365] good god who has restored my child to me, not i!"
"oh, acton, acton, you overwhelm me!" murmured the admiral, turning his head away to sea, and speaking with a voice that trembled with the tears of a man's heart.
"what i meant was," said captain acton, tenderly pressing his friend's arm, "if your son returns to england he may be arrested for debt, in which case his actions of abduction and piracy may be brought to light, and if i was not compelled to prosecute, i should be held guilty of conniving at a crime. all this must be avoided, and can be avoided."
"it can be avoided, and still your property may be preserved to you," exclaimed the admiral. "my unhappy son will throw him self upon your mercy——"
"it shall be extended sir, it shall be extended," broke in captain acton.
"and we can land him privately," continued the admiral, "at an english port, where habited in the clothes of a common sailor he will seek a berth before the mast, and sail away—to be heard of no more."
here this fine old seaman fairly broke down, and stepping to the bulwarks, hid his face in his hands, whilst convulsion after convulsion seemed to rend his sturdy figure.
captain acton waited until this [pg 366]unconquerable fit of grief should have abated. he then went to his friend's side, and, passing his arm round his neck, said: "my dear old friend, keep up your heart! we will pursue the minorca and regain her if possible, and depend upon it, your son shall be made to suffer as little as can be helped. meanwhile, let us wait until we hear lucy's story."
