They were a very merry party at dinner that day around the captain’s table. Not a large one, however; only Jack Mackenzie himself, his friend Tom Fairlie, MʻHearty, one “middie,” and bold Captain Butler, all good men and true; and the servant who waited at table was one to be trusted. Despite the fact that he was a Spaniard, he was most faithful, so that the conversation could take any turn without danger of a word being repeated either forward or to the servants below in the ward-room.
In talking and yarning right quickly passed the evening in the captain’s cabin; but everywhere fore and aft to-night both officers and crew were hearty. They had already bidden farewell to friends and home, soon their country too would fade far away from sight, and then—the glories of war. Ah! never mind about its horrors; what brave young British sailor ever thought of these?
CHAPTER IX.
“A SPLENDID NIGHT’S WORK, TOM!”
“Ah! cruel, hard-hearted, to press him,
And force the dear youth from my arms;
Restore him, that I may caress him,
And shield him from future alarms.”
Dibdin’s Pressgang.
was near to the hour of sunset, on an autumn evening about a week after the cozy dinner-party in the cabin of Captain Jack Mackenzie of the Tonneraire. The tree-clad hills and terra-cotta cliffs around Tor Bay were all ablur with driving mist and rain, borne viciously along on the wings of a north-east gale. Far out beyond the harbour mouth, betwixt Berry Head and Hope’s Nose, the steel-blue waters were flecked and streaked with foam; while high against the rocks of Corbyn’s Head the waves broke in clouds of spray.
As night fell, the wind seemed to increase; the sky was filled with storm-riven clouds; and the “white horses” that rode on the bay grew taller and taller.