“It takes a bold man,” said the Admiral, “to carry that on a day like this. He must have despatches on board from the Admiralty, or he’d never have put out.”
“There are two passengers, I make out now, sir.”
“Very important despatches, Berry. The French must have got out of Brest.”
“They’ll be alongside in a minute, sir, with this wind.”
As she came alongside and caught the rope I flung to her, the man at the tiller sang out to lower the gangway. “Lady on board, sir.”
The Captain looked at the Admiral. The weather was too rough for lowering a gangway.
“Lower away,” said the Admiral, with that little smile he wore after he had prayed, when going into battle: “please God nothing shall ever frighten me—not even a lady.”
The gangway was lowered, and strong arms, using all their dexterity, flung the larger bundle of oilskins into the arms of the sailor standing on the bottom step; they were going to follow with the thinner, taller bundle, but it shook them off with indignation. The larger bundle was passed up; the other scrambled up and stood on the deck bareheaded in front of the Admiral and the Captain. The Admiral conducted them along the slippery and unsteady deck to his state-room under the quarter-deck, and with his own hands peeled the oilskins from the lady, while the Captain gave orders for cordials, and the other bundle slipped back to the door of the state-room and began to lay off its oilskins there.
It was a little, slim, fair woman who stood before the hero, quite thinly clad when she removed the cloak under the oilskins, and evidently a widow, but of some years’ standing. She was the gentlest-looking creature imaginable, except for a certain firmness about the pathetic little mouth. The Admiral had signed to me to follow; he gave me the oilskins to hold. It was just like him: not until he had made the most solicitous inquiries and had offered her everything in the ship, did he ask whom he had the honour of addressing.
She took a sip of the cordial, and put her hand up to her silky fair hair, and finding how wet it was, gave it a little shake, as if she expected to dry herself like a dog. And after the shake she looked at the Admiral, who was re-beginning his inquiry with a considerable amount of trepidation, when she cut him short with: