As the boy came up, the old Commander was leaning against the wheel, bending towards his knee, and breathing hard.
There was a dark and peevish look about his face; and a trickle of red was running down his white knee-breeches.
"Tell ye 'taint etiquette to have men in your tops only in general actions and duels atween ships of the line," he was saying in slow and painful voice, very querulous. "In all my fifty years' experience o sea fightin, I never see sich a thing afoor, never! Dirty trick I call it."
The little Frenchman across the narrow lane of water dividing the ships, chattered excuses, all sympathy and shrugged shoulders.
"Ah, I so grieve. Pain! pain! terrible, n'est-ce-pas?—But what would you, my Captain?—It is no fault of mine. The Emperor's orders. 'I trust you, my Commodore,' says he. 'Coûte que coûte.'
"Emperor! about as much a h'Emperor as you are Commodore! And you're welcome to tell him so with my compliments," snorted the old man.
He threw his eye aloft.
"Mr. Caryll, take a party o small-arm men aloft, and clear them sneakin blay-guards out of her tops. Else they'll be boardin by the yards."
The boy rushed away.
Beneath his feet the deck staggered and shook. On the lower-deck of the Tremendous hell had broken loose, in flame and smoke and horrible bellowings. The little ship was racked. In her agony she quivered from truck to keel.