“Hand in sail!” This was an order from the quarter-deck.
“Ay, ay, sir.” This was an answer from for’ard.
“Thank goodness,” cried Jack and Bill both. “Better something than nothing.”
There was plenty of bustle and stir and din now, for a time at least, and bawling of orders, and shrill shriek of boatswain’s pipe. But when all was done that could be done, silence once more settled down on the ship—lethargy claimed her again as its own.
“I think, sir,” said the boatswain, touching his cap to the officer on watch, “I think, and I likewise hope, the wind’ll come off the land when it does come, sir. Anyhow, if it doesn’t commence to blow for the next ten hours we’ll get away into the open sea.”
“You’re an old sailor, Mr Roberts, and know this coast better than I do, so I like to hear you say what you do. Well, sure enough, the sun will be down in three hours, then we may get a bit of a land breeze. But the falling glass, Mr Roberts! I don’t like the falling glass!”
“No more do I, sir, and I’ve seen a tornado in these same waters, and the glass not much lower than it is now.”
Leaving these two talking on the quarter-deck, let us take a look down below.
Within a canvas screen, that formed a kind of a square tent on the main deck, a cot was swung in which there lay, apparently asleep, the fragile form of a young woman. A woman, a mother, and still to all appearance but little more than a girl.
Presently the screen was gently lifted, and a young soldier, dressed in the scarlet jacket of a sergeant of the line, glided in, dropped the screen again, then silently seating himself on a camp stool beside the cot, he began to smooth the delicate little snow-white hand that lay on the coverlet. Then her eyelids lifted, and a pair of orbs of sad sweet blue looked tenderly at the soldier by her side.