The Chloe was half an hour running through the fleet, which was a good deal extended, and was sailing without any regard to a line. Sir Gervaise had many questions to ask, too, of the different commanders in pa.s.sing. At last the frigate overtook le Temeraire, which vessel was following the Caesar under easy canva.s.s. As the Chloe came up abeam, Sir Gervaise appeared in the gangway of the frigate, and, hat in hand, he asked with an accent that was intelligible, though it might not have absolutely stood the test of criticism,--

_"Le Vice-Admiral Oakes demande comment se porte-il, le contre-amiral, le Vicomte des Prez?"_

A little elderly man, dressed with extreme care, with a powdered head, but of a firm step and perfectly collected expression of countenance, appeared on the verge of le Temeraire's p.o.o.p, trumpet in hand, to reply.

"_Le Vicomte des Prez remercie bien Monsieur le Chevalier Oake, et desire vivement de savoir comment se porte Monsieur le Vice-Amiral?_"

Mutual waves of the trumpets served as replies to the questions, and then, after taking a moment to muster his French, Sir Gervaise continued--

_"J'espere voir Monsieur le Contre-Amiral a diner, a cinq heures, precis."_

The vicomte smiled at this characteristic manifestation of good-will and courtesy; and after pausing an instant to choose an expression to soften his refusal, and to express his own sense of the motive of the invitation, he called out--

_"Veuillez bien recevoir nos excuses pour aujourd'hui, Mons. le Chevalier. Nous n'avons pas encore digere le repas si n.o.ble recu a vos mains comme dejeuner."_

The Chloe pa.s.sing ahead, bows terminated the interview. Sir Gervaise's French was at fault, for what between the rapid, neat, p.r.o.nunciation of the Frenchman, the trumpet, and the turn of the expression, he did not comprehend the meaning of the _contre-amiral_.

"What does he say, Wychecombe?" he asked eagerly of the young man. "Will he come, or not?"

"Upon my word, Sir Gervaise, French is a sealed language to me. Never having been a prisoner, no opportunity has offered for acquiring the language. As I understood, you intended to ask him to dinner; I rather think, from his countenance, he meant to say he was not in spirits for the entertainment."

"Pooh! we would have put him in spirits, and Bluewater could have talked to him in his own tongue, by the fathom. We will close with the Caesar to leeward, Denham; never mind rank on an occasion like this. It's time to let the top-gallant-halyards run; you'll have to settle your top-sails too, or we shall shoot past her. Bluewater may take it as a salute to his gallantry in carrying so fine a ship in so handsome a manner."

Several minutes now pa.s.sed in silence, during which the frigate was less and less rapidly closing with the larger vessel, drawing ahead towards the last, as it might be, foot by foot. Sir Gervaise got upon one of the quarter-deck guns, and steadying himself against the hammock-cloths, he was in readiness to exchange the greetings he was accustomed to give and to receive from his friend, in the same heartfelt manner as if nothing had occurred to disturb the harmony of their feelings. The single glance of the eye, the waving of the hat, and the n.o.ble manner in which Bluewater interposed between him and his most dangerous enemy, was still present to his mind, and disposed him even more than common to the kindest feelings of his nature. Stowel was already on the p.o.o.p of the Caesar, and, as the Chloe came slowly on, he raised his hat in deference to the commander-in-chief. It was a point of delicacy with Sir Gervaise never to interfere with any subordinate flag-officer's vessel any more than duty rigidly required; consequently his communications with the captain of the Caesar had usually been of a general nature, verbal orders and criticisms being studiously avoided. This circ.u.mstance rendered the commander-in-chief even a greater favourite than common with Stowel, who had all his own way in his own ship, in consequence of the rear-admiral's indifference to such matters.

"How do you do, Stowel?" called out Sir Gervaise, cordially. "I am delighted to see you on your legs, and hope the old Roman is not much the worse for this day's treatment"

"I thank you, Sir Gervaise, we are both afloat yet, though we have pa.s.sed through warm times. The ship is damaged, sir, as you may suppose; and, although it stands so bravely, and looks so upright, that foremast of ours is as good as a condemned spar. One thirty-two through the heart of it, about ten feet from the deck, an eighteen in the hounds, and a double-header sticking in one of the hoops! A spar cannot be counted for much that has as many holes in it as those, sir!"

"Deal tenderly with it, my old friend, and spare the canva.s.s; those chaps at Plymouth will set all to rights, again, in a week. Hoops can be had for asking, and as for holes in the heart, many a poor fellow has had them, and lived through it all. You are a case in point; Mrs. Stowel not having spared you in that way, I'll answer for it."

"Mrs. Stowel commands ash.o.r.e, Sir Gervaise, and I command afloat; and in that way, we keep a quiet ship and a quiet house, I thank you, sir; and I endeavour to think of her at sea, as little as possible."

"Ay, that's the way with you doting husbands;--always ashamed of your own lively sensibilities. But what has become of Bluewater?--Does he know that we are alongside?"

Stowel looked round, cast his eyes up at the sails, and played with the hilt of his sword. The rapid eye of the commander-in-chief detected this embarra.s.sment, and quick as thought he demanded what had happened.

"Why, Sir Gervaise, you know how it is with some admirals, who like to be in every thing. I told our respected and beloved friend, that he had nothing to do with boarding; that if either of us was to go, _I_ was the proper man; but that we ought both to stick by the ship. He answered something about lost honour and duty, and you know, sir, what legs he has, when he wishes to use them! One might as well think of stopping a deserter by a halloo; away he went, with the first party, sword in hand, a sight I never saw before, and never wish to see again! Thus you see how it was, sir."

The commander-in-chief compressed his lips, until his features, and indeed his whole form was a picture of desperate resolution, though his face was as pale as death, and the muscles of his mouth twitched, in spite of all his physical self-command.

"I understand you, sir," he said, in a voice that seemed to issue from his chest; "you wish to say that Admiral Bluewater is killed."

"No, thank G.o.d! Sir Gervaise, not _quite_ as bad as that, though sadly hurt; yes, indeed, very sadly hurt!"

Sir Gervaise Oakes groaned, and for a few minutes he leaned his head on the hammock-cloths, veiling his face from the sight of men. Then he raised his person erect, and said steadily--

"Run your top-sails to the mast-head, Captain Stowel, and round your ship to. I will come on board of you."

An order was given to Denham to take room, when the Chloe came to the wind on one tack and the Caesar on the other. This was contrary to rule, as it increased the distance between the ships; but the vice-admiral was impatient to be in his barge. In ten minutes he was mounting the Caesar's side, and in two more he was in Bluewater's main-cabin. Geoffrey Cleveland was seated by the table, with his face buried in his arms.

Touching his shoulder, the boy raised his head, and showed a face covered with tears.

"How is he, boy?" demanded Sir Gervaise, hoa.r.s.ely. "Do the surgeons give any hopes?"

The midshipman shook his head, and then, as if the question renewed his grief, he again buried his face in his arms. At this moment, the surgeon of the ship came from the rear-admiral's state-room, and following the commander-in-chief into the after-cabin, they had a long conference together.

Minute after minute pa.s.sed, and the Caesar and Chloe still lay with their main-top-sails aback. At the end of half an hour, Denham wore round and laid the head of his frigate in the proper direction. Ship after ship came up, and went on to the northward, fast as her crippled state would allow, yet no sign of movement was seen in the Caesar. Two sail had appeared in the south-eastern board, and they, too, approached and pa.s.sed without bringing the vice-admiral even on deck. These ships proved to be the Carnatic and her prize, le Scipion, which latter ship had been intercepted and easily captured by the former. The steering of M. de Vervillin to the south-west had left a clear pa.s.sage to the two ships, which were coming down with a free wind at a handsome rate of sailing. This news was sent into the Caesar's cabin, but it brought no person and no answer out of it. At length, when every thing had gone ahead, the barge returned to the Chloe. It merely took a note, however, which was no sooner read by Wycherly, than he summoned the Bowlderos and Galleygo, had all the vice-admiral's luggage pa.s.sed into the boat, struck his flag, and took his leave of Denham. As soon as the boat was clear of the frigate, the latter made all sail after the fleet, to resume her ordinary duties of a look-out and a repeating-ship.

As soon as Wycherly reached the Caesar, that ship hoisted in the vice-admiral's barge. A report was made to Sir Gervaise of what had been done, and then an order came on deck that occasioned all in the fleet to stare with surprise. The red flag of Sir Gervaise Oakes was run up at the foreroyal-mast-head of the Caesar, while the white flag of the rear-admiral was still flying at her mizzen. Such a thing had never before been known to happen, if it has ever happened since; and to the time when she was subsequently lost, the Caesar was known as the double flag-ship.

CHAPTER XXIX.

"He spoke; when behold the fair Geraldine's form On the canva.s.s enchantingly glowed; His touches, they flew like the leaves in a storm; And the pure pearly white, and the carnation warm, Contending in harmony flowed."

ALSTON.

We shall now ask permission of the reader to advance the time just eight-and-forty hours; a liberty with the unities which, he will do us the justice to say, we have not often taken. We must also transfer the scene to that already described at Wychecombe, including the Head, the station, the roads, and the inland and seaward views. Summer weather had returned, too, the pennants of the ships at anchor scarce streaming from their masts far enough to form curved lines. Most of the English fleet was among these vessels, though the squadron had undergone some changes.

The Druid had got into Portsmouth with _la Victoire_; the Driver and Active had made the best of their way to the nearest ports; with despatches for the admiralty; and the Achilles, in tow of the Dublin, with the Chloe to take care of both, had gone to leeward, with square yards, in the hope of making Falmouth. The rest of the force was present, the crippled ships having been towed into the roads that morning. The picture among the shipping was one of extreme activity and liveliness. Jury-masts were going up in the Warspite; lower and top-sail-yards were down to be fished, or new ones were rigging to be sent aloft in their places; the Plantagenet was all a-tanto, again, in readiness for another action, with rigging secured and masts fished, while none but an instructed eye could have detected, at a short distance, that the Caesar, Carnatic, Dover, York, Elizabeth, and one or two more, had been in action at all. The landing was crowded with boats as before, and gun-room servants and midshipmen's boys were foraging as usual; some with honest intent to find delicacies for the wounded, but more with the roguish design of contributing to the comforts of the unhurt, by making appeals to the sympathies of the women of the neighbourhood, in behalf of the hurt.

The princ.i.p.al transformation that had been brought about by this state of things, however, was apparent at the station. This spot had the appearance of a place to which the headquarters of an army had been transferred, in the vicissitudes of the field; warlike sailors, if not soldiers, flocking to it, as the centre of interest and intelligence.

Still there was a singularity observable in the manner in which these heroes of the deck paid their court; the cottage being seemingly tabooed, or at most, approached by very few, while the gra.s.s at the foot of the flag-staff was already beginning to show proofs of the pressure of many feet. This particular spot, indeed, was the centre of attraction; there, officers of all ranks and ages were constantly arriving, and thence they were as often departing; all bearing countenances sobered by anxiety and apprehension. Notwithstanding the constant mutations, there had been no instant since the rising of the sun, when some ten or twelve, at least, including captains, lieutenants, masters and idlers, had not been collected around the bench at the foot of the signal-staff, and frequently the number reached even to twenty.

A little retired from the crowd, and near the verge of the cliff, a large tent had been pitched. A marine paced in its front, as a sentinel.

Another stood near the gate of the little door-yard of the cottage, and all persons who approached either, with the exception of a few of the privileged, were referred to the sergeant who commanded the guard. The arms of the latter were stacked on the gra.s.s, at hand, and the men off post were loitering near. These were the usual military signs of the presence of officers of rank, and may, in sooth, be taken as clues to the actual state of things, on and around the Head.

Admiral Bluewater lay in the cottage, while Sir Gervaise Oakes occupied the tent. The former had been transferred to the place where he was about to breathe his last, at his own urgent request, while his friend had refused to be separated from him, so long as life remained. The two flags were still flying at the mast-heads of the Caesar, a sort of melancholy memorial of the tie that had so long bound their gallant owners in the strong sympathies of an enduring personal and professional friendship.

Persons of the education of Mrs. Dutton and her daughter, had not dwelt so long on that beautiful head-land, without leaving on the spot some lasting impressions of their tastes. Of the cottage, we have already spoken. The little garden, too, then bright with flowers, had a grace and refinement about it that we would hardly have expected to meet in such a place; and even the paths that led athwart the verdant common which spread over so much of the upland, had been directed with an eye to the picturesque and agreeable. One of these paths, too, led to a rustic summer-house--a sort of small, rude pavilion, constructed, like the fences, of fragments of wrecks, and placed on a shelf of the cliff, at a dizzy elevation, but in perfect security. So far from there being any danger in entering this summer-house, indeed, Wycherly, during his six months' residence near the Head, had made a path that descended still lower to a point that was utterly concealed from all eyes above, and had actually planted a seat on another shelf with so much security, that both Mildred and her mother often visited it in company. During the young man's recent absence, the poor girl, indeed, had pa.s.sed much of her time there, weeping and suffering in solitude. To this seat, Dutton never ventured; the descent, though well protected with ropes, requiring greater steadiness of foot and head than intemperance had left him. Once or twice, Wycherly had induced Mildred to pa.s.s an hour with him alone in this romantic place, and some of his sweetest recollections of this just-minded and intelligent girl, were connected with the frank communications that had there occurred between them. On this bench he was seated at the time of the opening of the present chapter. The movement on the Head, and about the cottage, was so great, as to deprive him of every chance of seeing Mildred alone, and he had hoped that, led by some secret sympathy, she, too, might seek this perfectly retired seat, to obtain a moment of un.o.bserved solitude, if not from some still dearer motive. He had not waited long, ere he heard a heavy foot over his head, and a man entered the summer-house. He was yet debating whether to abandon all hopes of seeing Mildred, when his acute ear caught her light and well-known footstep, as she reached the summer-house, also.

"Father, I have come as you desired," said the poor girl, in those tremulous tones which Wycherly too well understood, not to imagine the condition of Dutton. "Admiral Bluewater dozes, and mother has permitted me to steal away."

"Ay, Admiral Bluewater is a great man, though but little better than a dead one!" answered Dutton, as harshly in manner as the language was coa.r.s.e. "You and your mother are all attention to _him_; did _I_ lie in his place, which of you would be found hanging over my bed, with pale cheeks and tearful eyes?"

"_Both_ of us, father! _Do_ not--_do_ not think so ill of your wife and daughter, as to suppose it possible that either of them could forget her duty."

"Yes, _duty_ might do something, perhaps; what has duty to do with this useless rear-admiral? I _hate_ the scoundrel--he was one of the court that cashiered me; and one, too, that I am told, was the most obstinate in refusing to help me into this pitiful berth of a master."

Mildred was silent. She could not vindicate her friend without criminating her father. As for Wycherly, he would have given a year's income to be at sea; yet he shrunk from wounding the poor daughter's feelings by letting her know he overheard the dialogue. This indecision made him the unwilling auditor of a conversation that he ought not to have heard--an occurrence which, had there been time for reflection, he would have taken means to prevent.

"Sit you down here, Mildred," resumed Dutton, sternly, "and listen to what I have to say. It is time that there should no longer be any trifling between us. You have the fortunes of your mother and myself in your hands; and, as one of the parties so deeply concerned, I am determined _mine_ shall be settled at once."

"I do not understand you, father," said Mildred, with a tremour in her voice that almost induced the young man to show himself, though, we owe it to truth to say, that a lively curiosity _now_ mingled with his other sensations. "How can I have the keeping of dear mother's fortunes and yours?"

"_Dear_ mother, truly!--_Dear_ enough has she proved to me; but I intend the daughter shall pay for it. Hark you, Mildred; I'll have no more of this trifling--but I ask you in a father's name, if any man has offered you his hand? Speak plainly, and conceal nothing--I _will_ be answered."