The Commandant's Lady.
"Try it at once," said the Vice, with ill-dissembled eagerness. "Don't hesitate on our account—we are old smokers."
The commandant acted at once upon the suggestion, first courteously passing the bag to his guests. Within three minutes these traditional enemies were smoking the pipe of peace together, nor was lovely woman missing from the circle, for the commandant's lady filled and lit, not exactly a yard, but a "lady-finger" of clay herself, and puffed thereat with great satisfaction.
The rain ended, the party went out to look at the fort, and discovered that what from the outside had appeared a mere earthwork was really a very carefully built fort, with stone quarters, galleries, casemates and revetments, and easy of defence to a mere handful of men.
Just as the party was bidding adieu to their kind entertainers, there occurred an accident which displayed to an unexpected degree the esprit de corps of the expedition. The commandant had offered the Commodore some milk for the expedition, if some one would wait an hour for it—the cows were quite a way off, he said. To wait inside a grim fort while the sun shone brightly outside, and four canoes needing inspection on account of damages by rain, was a duty to chill the ardent soul. Just then, however, when the Commodore was wondering if he could safely forget his own morning detail of himself as fleet milkman, and assign this duty to some one else, the commandant's older daughter, heretofore invisible, and of about eighteen or twenty summers, appeared from an adjoining room.
"I'll stay, Commodore," shouted three manly voices in unison. The Commodore was so affected by this devotion to the interests of the fleet that he felt shamed into a determination to remain true to his self-appointed duty, but when he beheld the Purser's pleading eyes, more eloquent than any words could be, human sympathy overcame soulless discipline in the Commodore's rugged breast, and the brotherhood of man asserted itself.
The wind and the shower died together, and as each captain of a vessel had some special reason to wish himself farther on his journey, it was agreed that the squadron should proceed under paddles, and camp for the night at a point which the Vice knew all about, having camped there during a previous cruise with the Alderman. This plan was accepted with expressions of the liveliest satisfaction.
As the Purser rejoined the command with his milk pail, the three Americans were seriously conversing about garrison life, as it exists in the British service.
"I have often read," the Vice was saying, "of the exalted social tone which pervades the British army, and I confess that I am glad to have been admitted even for so short a time into society so select."