MR GREYQUILL'S VISIT
Mr Greyquill entered the room by two paces, and placing his hand upon
the spot where he supposed his heart to lie, made three separate bows
to the company, each of the "Your most humble and obedient servant"
school; it was an expression of ceremony which for mingled respect and
senility should have pleased, as it no doubt did please, Miss Acton.
He was a figure striking in its way as he made these bows, with his
long, snow-white hair, his heavy white eyebrows, his long curling
nose, the purely congenital satiric leer that characterised the
formation of his thin lips; and his faded dress, which was a very good
representation of his mind, aided the impression produced by his face.
Admiral Lawrence gave him a nod which was barely a mark of recognition.
Captain Acton bowed to him in silence. Miss Acton cried out:
"Pray step in, Mr Greyquill, and be seated!"
Greyquill sidled rather than walked in and sat down on a chair removed
from the others, and observing enquiry strong in each face as those who
watched him would not condescend to enquire the purpose of his visit,
but waited to hear it, he said: "I was coming out of Lower Street this
afternoon, when I heard the bell-man recite the announcement that Miss
Lucy Acton had been missing from her home this morning since between
seven and eight o'clock, and a reward of fifty guineas is offered
to any one who shall proclaim her whereabouts, or who shall help to
restore her to her family."
"That is so," said Captain Acton, viewing him gravely.
"Have you news of her?" cried Miss Acton.
"I wish to state, sir," said Mr Greyquill, addressing Captain Acton,
"that if I should prove instrumental, not in the restoration of Miss
Lucy Acton to her home, but in your discovering where she is, and
how she got there, my candour will be due entirely to the very great
respect I entertain for the young lady who has always had a kindly word
for me, and whose character is an extremely lovable one, and to the
regret, I may say indignation, that one so young, beautiful and rich,
should fall into such unworthy hands."
He glanced at the Admiral, who returned the look with a compressed
brow, whilst with his right hand he seemed to be keeping time to an
inward and secret tune with the play of his fingers upon the knee where
the leg of his breeches fell into his stocking.
"Oh, pray continue, sir! Pray continue!" cried Miss Acton in a voice
that was almost husky with the hysteric quality of her emotions.
"In other words, sir," continued Mr Greyquill, still addressing Captain
Acton, "I beg to state that if I should be so fortunate as to help you
in your trouble I desire no money reward, nor should dream of taking
any."
Captain Acton merely bowed.
"I have not met with the usage," old Greyquill went on calmly, steadily
exasperating Miss Acton by a preface that was disgusting and needless
whilst she thirsted for the one essential fact, "that I certainly
think I deserve from either Admiral Sir William Lawrence, nor his son,
Mr Lawrence." He spoke with so complete a neglect of the Admiral's
presence that the old gentleman might have been out of the room. "They
have no claim upon my kindness."
"We shall be thankful to receive any news of Miss Lucy Acton," said
Captain Acton, with that collectedness of manner which implies the
glazing by a vigorous will of passions growing turbulent.
"Two or three days after your appointment of Mr Lawrence as master
of the _Minorca_, I chanced to be going by way of Old Friar's Road
to visit some houses belonging to me. At the bend of the road, which
conceals the bridge and Old Harbour Town I met Mr Lawrence, and we
exchanged a few sentences on the subject of the sum of three hundred
pounds which he owes me. He informed me that when you, sir, had paid
him off on his return he would hand me the sum of twenty-five guineas
in part payment of his debt. We each pursued our way. When I had gone
a few yards I stopped and turned to look after him. He had disappeared
round the bend of the road, but just about the place where he and I
had conversed I saw something white. It was a letter. Thinking I had
dropped it in unconscious play of my hands during our talk, I returned
and picked it up."
The old man put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the letter, which
he held on his knee, whilst he continued: "It was not addressed, as
you will presently see, but the contents which I took the liberty of
reading, the letter being open and manifestly a stray article which
was anybody's property, assured me that it had just now fallen from
the pocket of Mr Lawrence, who had brought it out possibly with his
pocket-handkerchief, but who would not know of his loss by looking
behind him as the turn of the road hid it from him. I was greatly
astounded by the contents of this letter, which is in Mr Lawrence's
handwriting, and somewhat incensed by reading that he termed me an
old scamp, I, who had proved his friend at a time when friendship was
valuable to him, and who have shown him every consideration since. Will
you read the letter, sir?"
Mr Greyquill left his seat and stepped across with the missive to
Captain Acton. The Captain glanced at the contents, and without reading
extended the letter to the Admiral, saying: "Is this your son's
writing, sir?"
The Admiral took the letter, ran his eyes over it, and answered,
returning the letter to Captain Acton: "It is."
"It is a draft or copy," said Captain Acton. "It is undated, and it is
without the formal beginning of My dear, etc."
He then read slowly and deliberately, the handwriting being good and
clear:
"I should have answered your letter sooner but I have been so
worried by debts and difficulties, by compulsory idleness and the
absolute impossibility of finding anything congenial to do, that
I have had no spirit to communicate with you or anybody else. But
the wheel of fortune which has depressed me to the very bottom,
has by another revolution, raised me. I must tell you that I am
very heavily in debt. Even in this antiquated hole I owe an old
scamp, named Greyquill, three hundred pounds, of which I have
only had two hundred. I am in debt, some of them debts of honour,
to several men, a few of whom I have spoken of in my time as
brother-officers, and one of them quite recently threatened me
with the law. In addition, I owe a lot to various tradespeople
in London and elsewhere. So that my personal liberty hangs by a
hair, and at any moment I may find myself clapped on the shoulder,
arrested for debt, and flung into gaol, there to languish possibly
for the remainder of my days, for it is quite certain that my
father cannot, even if he would, come to my help. His private
means are very small, and his pension inconsiderable, and though
he has behaved very well in maintaining me since I quitted the
Service, and allowed me to use his cottage as a home, he is a man
whose morality is high and severe, and he is the last person to
part with a farthing in discharge of debts which he regards as
dishonourable.
"I had made up my mind to ship before the mast in a vessel bound
to America, where I should have left her, and sought my fortune
in a new country; when through the great kindness that a rich
gentleman in this district has for my father, I was offered the
command of a barque called the _Minorca_, a handsome little vessel
of about five hundred tons, on terms which a Merchant shipmaster
would consider liberal, but which to one, in the face of what
I owe, are as a penny piece in the value of a guinea. Captain
Acton (R.N., retired)--you may have met him--is the owner of the
two little ships. He lives in a beautiful old house, planted in
the midst of a fine prospect of gardens and orchards. He has one
child, a daughter, a young creature so beautiful that the instant
I saw her I irrecoverably lost my heart to her. I offered her
marriage; she rejected me, probably because she had been told that
I was a drinker and a gambler. I am, nevertheless, determined to
possess her as my wife, and with that view have promptly conceived
a stratagem or plot which should either end in enabling me to pay
off all my debts and live at peace in this country, or be hanged
as a pirate."
The Admiral, who had heretofore discovered no signs of life, started in
his chair and clenched his fist.
"It is you, my dear Dick, and old companion, mess-mate and
friend, with whom I have enjoyed many a jaunt to which I could
never recur without passionately lamenting the days that are no
more, who will help me in this desperate undertaking. I propose
to navigate the vessel, not to Kingston, Jamaica, to which port
she ought to be bound, but to the port in which you live, Rio de
Janeiro. By a ruse which must prove successful, I think, I shall
inveigle Miss Lucy Acton on board, and everything being ready,
shall make sail immediately after she is carefully confined in
my cabin. I have had a cabin set apart for my own use, which I
represented to Captain Acton was to serve as a sick-bay. This
drama has been well rehearsed. When far out at sea the crew will
be summoned aft. I shall read some pretended sealed orders from
Captain Acton, requiring me to carry the ship to Rio de Janeiro,
and to sell her, if possible, after discharging the mate and
crew, who will receive from Captain Acton, on application, treble
the amount of their wages they would have got for sailing the
vessel to Kingston. I shall also take care to destroy the ship's
papers. And my story will be that I was overhauled by an American
cruiser, who sent an officer on board. He examined the box of
papers and took it away to show to his Captain, as he considered
them unsatisfactory. The cruiser then braced her main top-sail
yard to the wind and sailed away with the box of papers. On my
arrival, we will consult together as to the safest course to be
adopted for the sale of the ship and cargo, by which time I have
no doubt the lady will have agreed to marry me either for love,
or because she has been placed in a situation which must render
marriage imperative to her in the name of honour. With the money
which I shall make, thanks to you, through this business, I will
pay off all my debts in England, and Lucy Acton being my wife, or
promising me her hand, I may count with absolute certainty upon
the forgiveness of her father, who is not likely to abandon his
only child for a behaviour that was no fault of hers, and the rest
must be left to time.
"I think our man to help us for a liberal commission will be your
friend, José Zamovano Y Villa. His scrupulosity in financial
matters is not likely to prove a great hindrance, eh, Dick? I
shall follow this letter soon after the ship that takes it, so
that you will not have long to wait before seeing me after you
have read it."
This letter was unsigned. It was manifestly a rough draft of the posted
letter which had been amplified before it was sent. Captain Acton's
hand dropped with it on to his knee. He exclaimed:
"That is the end--there is no name."
On which Miss Acton screamed out: "What did I say? Are not my words
true? To think of our beloved Lucy imprisoned in a ship! Sailed away
with, never to be seen more perhaps, in the hands of--of--oh, what is
to be done? What is to be done?"
The Admiral started from his chair to his feet. His face was full of
blood, his hands were uplifted, and his fingers tightly locked. He
cried, in a voice that was like mimic thunder in its power, and breaks,
and falls:
"I will hire a vessel and chase him; I will pursue him, though he
should lead me to the very gates of Hell. Oh, my precious God! I, who
have ever striven to act my part well in the service of my country!
I, who have ever struggled to live an honourable and a stainless life
as a gentleman and a sailor! Why am I dishonoured and degraded by the
possession of such a son?"
He unclasped his hands and buried his purple face, and stood rocking
and reeling as though he were about to fall in a fit, and sobbed twice
or thrice with that dreadful note of grief in his dry-eyed agony, which
makes the fearlessness of manhood in suffering one of the most pitiful,
painful and pathetic of spectacles. Captain Acton laid his hand on the
Admiral's shoulder.
"Bear up!" he said gently. "Presently we will discuss the matter
calmly. God is good, and this blow may not prove nearly so heavy as we
now think it."
With kindly pressure he obliged the old seaman to resume his seat, and
then turned with something of fierceness upon old Greyquill.
"May I ask," said he, flourishing the letter, "how it is that you, sir,
being fully admitted by the perusal of this document into the base plot
Mr Lawrence was hatching, should have chosen to keep the intention to
yourself, when by the revelation of this letter you could have put it
out of Mr Lawrence's power to carry off my child."
Mr Greyquill stood up. His eyes had a peculiar light in them, a faint
flush was painted on each cheek, and seemed to make whiter yet the
whiteness of his brows and his hair.
"Sir," he answered, "I am much sneered at in this town and district. I
am very well aware that few have a kind word for me. If you, sir, or
Admiral Lawrence condescend to bestow a nod upon me as I respectfully
pass you in the street, it has the character of the recognition with
which you would honour something you disdain, which you are compelled
to see, and by that nod acknowledge the existence of. Your beautiful
daughter, Miss Lucy, on the other hand, has always been gracious and
kind to me. In the light and sweetness of her presence I am sensible
of the warmth and glow which make me feel that I am human and a man.
There is no office I would not discharge to oblige her. I make money
by lending it, but I would give her money--much if she needed it, for
the delight I take in her sympathetic, tender and generous nature. When
I read the letter you hold, sir, I did not believe that Mr Lawrence
would have the power or the art to carry out his scheme of kidnapping
your daughter, and I was only assured that his base plot, as you term
it, had proved triumphant by the calling of the bell-man, and by the
letterpress on the placards which they are pasting about the place.
Then I was determined that you should be instantly apprised through the
medium of Mr Lawrence's own letter of what had become of your daughter.
Otherwise, sir, the loss of your ship by an act of piracy must be
nothing to me. Mr Lawrence promises in his letter that he will repay
all his creditors, of which I am one to the extent of three hundred
pounds. And as I am of opinion that this is his honest intention in
order to enable him to dwell in England at liberty, I resolved to keep
my own counsel and to await the receipt of my money."
Thus speaking he picked up his hat from the floor, bowed to Captain
Acton and to Miss Acton, and left the room without noticing the Admiral.
"What a wicked, dreadful old man!" exclaimed Miss Acton, "to preserve
such a hideous secret, and to be willing to wait for payment of his
three hundred pounds out of another man's robbery. What is to be done?
What will you do, brother? Our Lucy must be rescued. Is it too late?
She was here in this house this morning at seven o'clock. The ship
cannot be far off. Cannot she be reached?"
Captain Acton, holding the Greyquill letter in his hand, stepped to a
bell rope and pulled it. The hue of his face was ashen, the expression
cold and severe: such a face as he would carry had he to confront a
crowd of armed mutineers.
"What is to be done? What is to be done?" cried Miss Acton.
"What is to be done?" exclaimed the Admiral, starting from a silence
in which his form was motionless, though his lips might have been
seen moving whilst his eyes were fastened upon the carpet. "This is
to be done, madam. I will commute my pension. I will mortgage my
household furniture. I will get together every penny that is to be had
by realisation of what I possess. I will post to London to-morrow."
He pulled out a great gold watch and surveyed it for two or three
breathless moments, "and in the river seek and assuredly find a
sharp-stemmed vessel which shall convey me to Rio de Janeiro, and I
shall be in that spot, if God but grant me wind enough, to greet the
arrival of that villain, my son, to secure the person of your daughter,
and return her in safety--that I will do!--that I will do!" And the
poor old fellow stood up snapping his fingers whilst he flourished
his arms at Captain Acton and his sister, and made several mouths in
inarticulate phrase.
A footman entered.
"Send George at once," said Captain Acton, "with the gig as fast as the
mare can trot to Captain Weaver. He must call at his house first--the
Paragon out of Lower Street. If not at home, he must find out where he
is, and drive him back here with express orders from me that I must see
him without loss of an instant's time."
The footman ran out. Miss Acton looked with eager, tearful expectation
at her brother, who addressing the Admiral, exclaimed:
"You are a sailor, sir, and so am I, and 'tis natural that we should
both light upon the same scheme. But there is not the slightest
occasion for you to sacrifice a farthing of your property, nor to post
to London to-morrow to find a ship, some little schooner or other swift
enough to enable you to be at Rio when the _Minorca_ arrives. Such a
ship," he said, his face brightening a little with an expression of
triumph, "I possess in the _Aurora_. She has discharged her lading. She
can be ballasted at once, and if a crew can be assembled by this time
to-morrow evening, I may be far down Channel in such pursuit as must
make the barque's chances of escape hopeless, unless indeed she eludes
me in the night, or in thick weather, in which case I shall thrash on
and be at Rio a week before she enters the Harbour."
"The _Aurora_," cried the Admiral with a sudden elation, which might
have passed as the flare-up of a man in his cups who has sat for a
while in maudlin dejection. "By heavens, Acton, you have hit it! where
should I find such a vessel for this purpose? Why, aboard of her in a
few days you would be alongside the _Minorca_, if you are fair in the
scent of the trail of her wake, and wanting that, why, your noble and
beautiful little clipper will have been at Rio a fortnight before the
barque heaves in sight. May I accompany you?--but you must allow me to
do so. You must permit me to be your companion, for, by God, Captain
Acton, it is for you to recover your daughter and your property, but it
is for me to greet that malefactor, my son."
He smote his thigh hard with the palm of his hand. The noise was like
the report of a pistol. He was wont to strike himself thus in the days
of his command when angered, or when he expressed a purpose, which he
intended to fulfil though it meant life or death.
"Certainly, Sir William," said Captain Acton. "I shall rejoice to have
you with me."
"Good, good!" cried the old fellow, and rolling across to his friend,
he grasped him by the hand, and held on, looking at his friend with
a face a-work with emotion, with an expression indeed that seemed
perilously close to further dry sobs.
"But," said Captain Acton, who was perhaps helped to a display of
comparative composure of mind by the Admiral's reception of the news,
"though if possible we shall sail to-morrow evening or the following
day in pursuit, my opinion is, sir, that even if Mr Lawrence were left
to his own shifts he would never be able to compass his undertaking.
First of all, he has a highly respectable man, who has proved a good
servant to me, to deal with in his mate. Will Mr Eagle permit him to
carry the _Minorca_ to Rio? Will the crew have nothing to say? What
will be thought by all hands when it gets about that my daughter is on
board, a prisoner in confinement in the cabin? And is my daughter so
enamoured of Mr Lawrence that because he has placed her in a highly
equivocal situation she will be willing to marry him, or to have
anything to say to him on their arrival at Rio?"
"Oh no, oh no!" interposed Miss Acton; "she would not be our Lucy if
she did."
"My conviction is," continued the Captain, "that when Eagle and
the crew get scent of Mr Lawrence's intentions, and understand the
blackguardly act he has been guilty of in trepanning my daughter, they
will turn upon him and either do him some serious mischief or lock him
up, and under Eagle, proceed direct to Kingston, or if they have not
gone far, return to Old Harbour."
"That's what will happen!" cried Miss Acton. "Would our sailors permit
a stranger like Mr Lawrence to steal your daughter and your ship and
what is in her, and be dismissed from your service by him at Rio
Janeiro with promises of your paying them treble wages when they got
home, and applied to you? Oh no, no, no!"
"And Mr Lawrence," continued Captain Acton, speaking in a cool
voice that was almost sarcastic, "little understands the habits and
customs of the Merchant Service when he supposes that owners give
their shipmasters sealed orders to be opened and read to the crew in
mid-ocean, or when they are well away from their port of departure.
This is the practice of our Service, sir, and Mr Lawrence as a Naval
man who is ignorant of the habits and discipline of the Merchant ship
greatly errs in supposing that the crew will be misled by any such
device."
"Suppose," said Miss Acton, "that a French man-o'-war should capture
you, and make you prisoners, what is to become of Lucy?
"We must defy every chance in our determination to recover my child,"
answered her brother.
"Ay, that must be," exclaimed the Admiral, "even though Heaven should
rain French men-of-war."
An hour passed from the time the message was sent before Captain
Weaver arrived. Captain Acton desired to see the skipper alone, out of
delicacy to Sir William, of whose son it would be impossible to speak
without causing the poor old gentleman distress more or less acute.
The Admiral found out Captain Acton's well-bred and considerate wish
in the one or two hints he dropped, but stuck manfully to his chair
nevertheless, and when Captain Weaver was announced, he still remained
one of the three occupants of the room.
The skipper entered, red, nervous, with a countenance slightly lifted
by astonishment. Of course he knew that Miss Lucy Acton had been
missing since the morning, but that was all he did know.
"Walk in, Captain Weaver. Pray, take that chair," said Captain Acton.
"I can ask you no questions until I make you acquainted with what has
happened."
"Then Miss Lucy hasn't been found, sir," said the Captain.
"She has been kidnapped by Mr Lawrence," answered Captain Acton.
"She left this house early this morning to take one of those fresh
morning-walks which she enjoys, and was seen to receive a letter from
the hunchback steward of the _Minorca_. She must have immediately
hastened on board the barque, urged by some statement which I am
disposed to agree with my sister Miss Acton, was forged or manufactured
by Mr Lawrence."
"My son, Captain Weaver, my son!" broke in the Admiral tremulously.
"The best of fathers have known your lot, sir," answered Captain
Weaver. "There is no need to go to the Old Testament to learn that."
"The long and short of it is, Captain Weaver," said Captain Acton,
"Mr Lawrence having lured my daughter on board the vessel he commands
through some ruse which I am unable to explain, made sail at once with
the lady on board, not for Kingston, Jamaica, but for Rio Janeiro,
where he proposes to discharge the mate and crew after reading to them
a forged promise by me that their wages to Kingston shall be trebled on
their return and on their application to me. He also proposes to sell
the ship and cargo, and he is manifestly acquainted with some scoundrel
out at Rio, who, in spite of such vigilance as the officials of Rio
may be in the habit of exercising, will undoubtedly discover a market,
though not necessarily at Rio."
"Rascally things can be done at sea, sir," said Captain Weaver, whose
face, instead of gaining in the look of amazement that had coloured it
on his entrance, was slowly settling as Captain Acton proceeded into
an expression of hard-a-weather composure. With such a look perhaps
a thoroughbred, stout-hearted British sailor would view the calamity
or catastrophe that was pressing strong men down upon their knees in
devotion, and causing tears of terror to flow from the eyes of others.
"Oh, Captain Weaver, there are many wicked people at sea!" cried Miss
Acton. "Think of the pirates! Think of the slavers! My poor, poor
niece!"
"Now, sir," continued Captain Acton, "it is not the intention of Sir
William Lawrence or myself to suffer my daughter to be kidnapped by an
act of treachery which I forbear to say more about in the presence of
my honourable and gallant old friend, Admiral Lawrence."
"Oh, Acton," exclaimed the Admiral, "nothing that you can say could
approach what I feel, could express what I suffer."
"My intention is," Captain Acton went on, "to fit out the _Aurora_
at once for a chase. We know where the _Minorca_ is bound to. Mr
Lawrence's course must necessarily be yours. Your vessel can sail two
feet to his one. If we are unfortunate enough to miss him on the high
seas, we shall be at Rio a week or a fortnight before the _Minorca_
arrives, to receive him. When can you get your ship ready for sea?"
Captain Weaver reflected. "To-day, sir," he said, "is Toosday. I'll
engage to be under way by Saturday."
"Not before?" cried Miss Acton, an exclamation which Captain Weaver
received with a faint smile.
"That will be giving the _Minorca_ long odds, won't it?" said Captain
Acton.
"No, sir. If we took a fortnight to fit the clipper for sea, we should
overhaul the _Minorca_ or be ahead of her long before she heaves her
port into sight."
"What's the distance to Rio, Captain Weaver?" asked the Admiral.
"All five thousand miles, sir."
"What would you call the _Aurora's_ average?" enquired Captain Acton.
"I'll put it low to make sure," responded Captain Weaver, "and call it
a hundred and twenty-five miles a day, though a hundred and fifty would
be nearer the mark."
The Admiral might have been observed to be calculating by the movement
of his lips. "It will be a run, then," said he, "of about forty days."
"At the utmost," said Captain Weaver, "and the _Minorca_ will want at
least sixty."
"What have you to do," said Captain Acton, "that we should wait until
Saturday?"
Here the conversation was stayed for a minute or two by the entrance
of a footman with a tray of sandwiches and cakes, and ale for Captain
Weaver, and wine, and the like.
"Why," answered Captain Weaver, who had had time to think, "the
_Aurora's_ copper wants cleaning badly. We shall need to take in more
ballast. There are the sails to bend and a lot to be seen to aloft;
stores to be shipped, and dozens of other matters to be attended to,
gentlemen. We're not a Naval dockyard down on the wharves. We can't rig
out a dismantled frigate and fill her with men with all her artillery
in place and send her to sea in twenty-four hours, and there may be
some little difficulty as to a few of the crew. Two or three of them
who are married will want a longer spell ashore than this time gives
them. If so, and I reckon upon it, I shall need others."
"You think a detention of four days will signify nothing in our
certainty of overhauling the _Minorca_, or getting to Rio in advance of
her?" said Captain Acton.
"I know the _Aurora_, sir. No highwayman could know his blood-mare
which has galloped him again and again clear of the noose of the gibbet
better than I know your Baltimore clipper. She'll look up to windward,
or hold her course when the _Minorca_ is falling points off. She was
built to sail, madam, and she do sail. There is nothing in the King's
service with her legs. I allow she was born to be a slaver."
"She looks swift even as she lies at rest," said Miss Acton.
"You are not armed, I think," said the Admiral, "whilst the _Minorca_
carries some carronades and a stand of small arms in her cabin. Mr
Lawrence is a fighting man, and his situation is one of desperation
and"--his voice sank as he added--"piracy."
"I do not propose to go armed," said Captain Acton. "Such armament
as the _Aurora_ of three hundred and ninety tons could carry, and
not perhaps without injury to her speed, would prove of little good
against an enemy to whom we could only show our heels, whilst as to the
_Minorca_ if we overhauled her we should hail her to back her topsail,
and if she declined we should hold her in sight."
"We might lose her in thick weather," said the Admiral.
"Then, sir, our policy will be to thrash on for Rio."
"You are quite right," said Captain Weaver. "Guns would only be in our
way, and sarve to check the beauty, which we don't want."
"Can you explain, Captain Weaver," interrupted Miss Acton, whose
irrelevancy was feminine, and whose question was based on her desire
to hear something that she could understand, for the talk now as it
ran was beyond her--"how it was that Miss Lucy Acton, who is one of
the best known ladies who reside in these parts, should pass along the
wharves and go on board the _Minorca_ to be made a prisoner of and
sailed away with, without anybody seeing her--without anybody being
able to say that he saw a young female pass along? Even if he could
describe her dress without knowing who she was, we should have been
able to conclude that Mr Lawrence had lured her on board: for we never
could have supposed that she would have gone to him without his being
guilty of some base stratagem to inveigle her."
"I can make no other answer than this, ma'am," said Captain Weaver.
"Suppose she was down on the wharves between half-past seven and eight.
Most of the labourers would have been away breakfasting. The few that
hung about might not have taken any notice of her, or if one or two
did, then they are people we didn't come across to question. Most of
the men on board the ships in the Harbour would be in their foc'sles
breakfasting and smoking and the like, and those that were on deck, and
few enough at that hour, might be thinking of other things than people
who were passing by. I don't see how else Miss Lucy Acton's not being
seen or noticed can be accounted for."
"No doubt you are right," said Captain Acton. "I see no other solution
to the puzzle, and a puzzle it is, for," said he, "it is quite certain
that my daughter was down on the wharves and was entrapped this
morning, which explains the reason of Mr Lawrence's hurried sailing."
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said Captain Weaver very humbly and
respectfully, "both your honours are sea-faring men who've seen more
of the sea than my larnedest notions could heave into sight to me, but
I should like to say this: if our ship is made out aboard the _Minorca_
supposing we overhaul her, is she likely to back her topsail to our
hail? Mr Lawrence, we may guess, is a detarmined man, he'll know that
you've got the scent of him, and I allow that he'll keep all on with
his ship, even if there should be such a breeze as would sarve him to
run her under water."
"We must hoist foreign colours," said the Admiral quickly and
decisively. "American, I should think; there are many Yankees afloat
like the _Aurora_."
"Still begging of your honours' pardon," said Captain Weaver, "suppose
the _Minorca_ do back her topsail and we launch our boat; Mr Lawrence
makes out his father and Captain Acton in the starn sheets. Will he
stay to receive ye? Won't he fill on his topsail and be off?"
"You forget," said Captain Acton, "that Mr Eagle and my crew are on
board, and they will have something to say in response to Mr Lawrence's
orders."
"Your honours," said Captain Weaver, "I am greatly mistaken if Mr
Lawrence don't prove one of the hardest and most difficult skippers
that ever took command of a ship. He'll get his way, though it should
come to his sending balls to do it through the brains of those who try
to stop him."
"If the _Minorca_ won't heave-to after catching sight of us in the
boat," said Captain Acton, "we must return to the _Aurora_ and follow
her. Then, as I have said, we must head under a full press for Rio."
"But will Mr Lawrence make for Rio," said Captain Weaver, "when he
understands by the _Aurora_ chasing that you have found out his port of
destination?"
"Something at sea must be left to chance," said Captain Acton a little
impatiently. "Since you cannot be ready before Saturday Sir William and
I will have time to weigh your conjectures and views. I shall be down
early to-morrow morning, and hope to find that you have made a fresh
and vigorous start in getting the vessel ready for sea."