"Badly, I believe, Sir Gervaise, in the hounds. Captain Blewet carried on his ship fearfully, all night."

"Ay, he's a fearful fellow with spars, that Tom Blewet. I never felt certain of finding all the sticks in their places, on turning out of a morning, when he was with you as a lieutenant, Greenly. How many jib-booms and top-gallant yards did he cost us, in that cruise off the Cape of Good Hope? By George, it must have been a dozen, at least!"

"Not quite as bad as that, Sir Gervaise, though he did expend two jib-booms and three top-gallant yards, for me. Captain Blewet has a fast ship, and he wishes people to know it."

"And he has sprung his foremast and he shall see _I_ know it! Harkee, Bunting, make the Druid's number to lie by the prize; and when that's answered, tell him to take charge of the Frenchman, and to wait for further orders. I'll send him to Plymouth to get a new foremast, and to see the stranger in. By the way, does any body know the name of the Frenchman--hey! Greenly?"

"I cannot tell you, Sir Gervaise, though some of our gentlemen think it is the ship that was the admiral's second ahead, in our brush off Cape Finisterre. I am not of the same opinion, however; for that vessel had a billet-head, and this has a woman figure-head, that looks a little like a Minerva. The French have a _la Minerve_, I think."

"Not now, Greenly, if this be she, for she is _ours_." Here Sir Gervaise laughed heartily at his own humour, and all near him joined in, as a matter of course. "But la Minerve has been a frigate time out of mind.

The G.o.ddess of Wisdom has never been fool enough to get into a line of battle when she has had it in her power to prevent it."

"_We_ thought the figure-head of the prize a Venus, as we pa.s.sed her in the Druid," Wycherly modestly observed.

"There is a way of knowing, and it shall be tried. When you've done with the Druid, Bunting, make the prize's signal to repeat her name by telegraph. You know how to make a prize's number, I suppose, when she has none."

"I confess I do not, Sir Gervaise," answered Bunting, who had shown by his manner that he was at a loss. "Having no number in our books, one would be at a stand how to get at her, sir."

"How would _you_ do it, young man?" asked Sir Gervaise, who all this time was hanging on to the man-rope of the p.o.o.p-ladder. "Let us see how well you've been taught, sir."

"I believe it may be done in different modes, Sir Gervaise," Wycherly answered, without any appearance of triumph at his superior readiness, "but the simplest I know is to hoist the French flag under the English, by way of saying for whom the signal is intended."

"Do it, Bunting," continued Sir Gervaise, nodding his head as he descended the ladder, "and I warrant you, Daly will answer. What sort of work he will make with the Frenchman's flags, is another matter. I doubt, too, if he had the wit to carry one of our books with him, in which case he will be at a loss to read our signal. Try him, however, Bunting; an Irishman always has _something_ to say, though it be a bull."

This order given, Sir Gervaise descended to his cabin. In half an hour the party was seated at table, as quietly as if nothing unusual had occurred that day.

"The worst of these little brushes which lead to nothing, is that they leave as strong a smell of gunpowder in your cabin, Greenly, as if a whole fleet had been destroyed," observed the vice-admiral good-humouredly, as he began to help his guests. "I hope the odour we have here will not disturb your appet.i.tes, gentlemen."

"You do this day's success injustice, Sir Gervaise, in calling it only a brush," answered the captain, who, to say the truth, had fallen to as heartily upon the delicacies of Galleygo, as if he had not eaten in twenty-four hours. "At any rate, it has brushed the spars out of two of king Louis's ships, and one of them into our hands; ay, and in a certain sense into our pockets."

"Quite true, Greenly--quite true; but what would it have been if--"

The sudden manner in which the commander-in-chief ceased speaking, induced his companions to think that he had met with some accident in eating or drinking; both looked earnestly at him, as if to offer a.s.sistance. He _was_ pale in the face, but he smiled, and otherwise appeared at his ease.

"It is over, gentlemen," said Sir Gervaise, gently--"we'll think no more of it."

"I sincerely hope you've not been hit, sir?" said Greenly. "I've known men hit, who did not discover that they were hurt until some sudden weakness has betrayed it."

"I believe the French have let me off this time, my good friend--yes, I think Magrath will be plugging no shot-holes in my hull for this affair.

Sir Wycherly, those eggs are from your own estate, Galleygo having laid the manor under contribution for all sorts of good things. Try them, Greenly, as coming from our friend's property."

"Sir Wycherly is a lucky fellow in _having_ an estate," said the captain. "Few officers of his rank can boast of such an advantage; though, now and then, an old one is better off."

"That is true enough--hey! Greenly? The army fetches up most of the fortunes; for your rich fellows like good county quarters and county b.a.l.l.s. I was a younger brother when they sent _me_ to sea, but I became a baronet, and a pretty warm one too, while yet a reefer. Poor Josselin died when I was only sixteen, and at seventeen they made me an officer."

"Ay, and we like you all the better, Sir Gervaise, for not giving us up when the money came. Now Lord Morganic was a captain when _he_ succeeded, and we think much less of that."

"Morganic remains in service, to teach us how to stay top-masts and paint figure-heads;" observed Sir Gervaise, a little drily. "And yet the fellow handled his ship well to-day; making much better weather of it than I feared he would be able to do."

"I hear we are likely to get another duke in the navy, sir; it's not often we catch one of that high rank."

Sir Gervaise cared much less for things of this sort than Bluewater, but he naturally cast a glance at the speaker, as this was said, as much as to ask whom he meant.

"They tell me, sir, that Lord Montresor, the elder brother of the boy in the Caesar, is in a bad way, and Lord Geoffrey stands next to the succession. I think there is too much stuff in _him_ to quit us now he is almost fit to get his commission."

"True, Bluewater has that boy of high hopes and promise with him, too;"

answered Sir Gervaise in a musing manner, unconscious of what he said.

"G.o.d send he may not forget _that_, among other things!"

"I don't think rank makes any difference with Admiral Bluewater, or Captain Stowel. The n.o.bles are worked up in their ship, as well as the humblest reefer of them all. Here is Bunting, sir, to tell us something."'

Sir Gervaise started from a fit of abstraction, and, turning, he saw his signal-officer ready to report.

"The Druid has answered properly, Sir Gervaise, and has already hauled up so close that I think she will luff through the line, though it may be astern of the Carnatic."

"And the prize, Bunting? Have you signalled the prize, as I told you to do?"

"Yes, sir; and she has answered so properly that I make no question the prize-officer took a book with him. The telegraphic signal was answered like the other."

"Well, what does he say? Have you found out the name of the Frenchman?"

"That's the difficulty, sir; _we_ are understood, but Mr. Daly has shown something aboard the prize that the quarter-master swears is a paddy."

"A paddy!--What, he hasn't had himself run up at a yard-arm, or stun'sail-boom end, has he--hey! Wychecombe? Daly's an Irishman, and has only to show _himself_ to show a paddy."

"But this is a sort of an image of some kind or other, Sir Gervaise, and yet it isn't Mr. Daly. I rather think he hasn't the flags necessary for our words, and has rigged out a sort of a woman, to let us know his ship's name; for she _has_ a woman figure-head, you know, sir."

"The devil he has! Well, that will form an era in signals. Galleygo, look out at the cabin window and let me know if you can see the prize from them--well, sir, what's the news?"

"I sees her, Sir Jarvy," answered the steward, "and I sees her where no French ship as sails in company with British vessels has a right to be.

If she's a fathom, your honour, she's fifty to windward of our line!

Quite out of her place, as a body might say, and onreasonable."

"That's owing to our having felled the forests of her masts, Mr.

Galleygo; every spar that is left helping to put her where she is. That prize must be a weatherly ship, though, hey! Greenly? She and her consort were well to windward of their own line, or we could never have got 'em as we did. These Frenchmen _do_ turn off a weatherly vessel now and then, that we must all admit."

"Yes, Sir Jarvy," put in Galleygo, who never let the conversation flag when he was invited to take a part in it; "yes, Sir Jarvy, and when they've turned 'em off the stocks they turns 'em over to us, commonly, to sail 'em. Building a craft is one piece of knowledge, and sailing her _well_ is another."

"Enough of your philosophy, sirrah; look and ascertain if there is any thing unusual to be seen hanging in the rigging of the prize. Unless you show more readiness, I'll send one of the Bowlderos to help you."

These Bowlderos were the servants that Sir Gervaise brought with him from his house, having been born on his estate, and educated as domestics in his own, or his father's family; and though long accustomed to a man-of-war, as their ambition never rose above their ordinary service, the steward held them exceedingly cheap. A severer punishment could not be offered him, than to threaten to direct one of these common menials to do any duty that, in the least, pertained to the profession.

The present menace had the desired effect, Galleygo losing no time in critically examining the prize's rigging.

"I calls nothing extr'ornary in a Frenchman's rigging, Sir Jarvy,"

answered the steward, as soon as he felt sure of his fact; "their dock-men have idees of their own, as to such things. Now there is sum'mat hanging at the lee fore-yard-arm of that chap, that looks as if it might be a top-gallant-stun'sail made up to be sent aloft and set, but which stopped when it got as high as it is, on finding out that there's no hamper over-head to spread it to."

"That's it, sir," put in Bunting. "Mr. Daly has run his woman up to the fore-yard-arm, like a pirate."

"Woman!" repeated Galleygo--"do you call that 'ere thing-um-mee a woman, Mr. Buntin'? I calls it a bundle of flags, made up to set, if there was any thing to set 'em to."