“The wind is fair.”
“It is a hurricane,” replied the other, almost shuddering.
“It blows fresh,” was Daly's cool remark.
For a moment or two the stranger returned to his party, with whom he talked eagerly, and the voices of the others were also heard, speaking in evident excitement.
“You have the pistols safe, Sandy?” whispered Daly.
“They 're a' safe, and in the wherry; but you 'll no want them this time, I trow,” said Sandy, with a shrug of his shoulders; “yon folk would rather bide where they are the night, than tak' a bit o' pleasure in the Channel.”
Daly smiled, and turned away to hide it, when the stranger again came forward. “I have consulted with my friends, Mr. Daly, who are also the friends of Serjeant Nickolls; they are of opinion that, under the circumstances of your being bound over, this affair cannot with propriety go further, although it might not, perhaps, be unreasonable to expect that you, feeling the peculiar situation in which you stand, might express some portion of regret at the utterance of this most severe attack.”
“You are really misinformed on the whole of the business,” said Daly. “In the few words I offered to the House, I was but responding to the question of your friend, who asked, I think somewhat needlessly, 'Where was Bagenal Daly?' I have no regrets to express for any terms I applied to him, though I may feel sorry that the forms of the House prevented my saying more. I am ready to meet him now; or, as he seems to dislike a breeze, when the weather is calmer. Tell him so; but tell him besides, that if he utters one syllable in my absence that the most malevolent gossip of a club-room can construe into an imputation on me, by G—d I'll break every bone in his cowardly carcass! Come, Sandy, lead on. Good evening, sir. I wish you a bolder friend, or better weather.” So saying, he moved forward, and was soon hastening towards the North Wall, where the wherry was moored.
“It's unco like the night we were wrecked in the Gulf,” said Sandy. “I mind the moon had that same blue color, and the clouds were a' below, and none above her.”
“So it is, Sandy,—there 's a heavy sea outside, I 'm sure. How many men have we?”