‘But who can always on the billows lie?
The watery wilderness yields no supply.’
compared with such a prisoner, noble Captain,
‘Happy, thrice happy, who, in battle slain,
Press’d in Atrides’ cause the Trojan pain!’
Pope’s version, sir, not the original Greek.”
And so saying, Jack once more brought his hat-rim to his mouth, and slightly bending forward, stood mute.
At this juncture the Most Serene Commodore himself happened to emerge from the after-gangway, his gilded buttons, epaulets, and the gold lace on his chapeau glittering in the flooding sunset. Attracted by the scene between Captain Claret and so well-known and admired a commoner as Jack Chase he approached, and assuming for the moment an air of pleasant condescension—never shown to his noble barons the officers of the ward-room—he said, with a smile, “Well, Jack, you and your shipmates are after some favour, I suppose—a day’s liberty, is it not?”
Whether it was the horizontal setting sun, streaming along the deck, that blinded Jack, or whether it was in sun-worshipping homage of the mighty Commodore, there is no telling; but just at this juncture noble Jack was standing reverentially holding his hat to his brow, like a man with weak eyes.
“Valiant Commodore,” said he, at last, “this audience is indeed an honour undeserved. I almost sink beneath it. Yes, valiant Commodore, your sagacious mind has truly divined our object. Liberty, sir; liberty is, indeed, our humble prayer. I trust your honourable wound, received in glorious battle, valiant Comodore, pains you less today than common.”
“Ah! cunning Jack!” cried the Commodore, by no means blind to the bold sortie of his flattery, but not at all displeased with it. In more respects than one, our Commodore’s wound was his weak side.
“I think we must give them liberty,” he added, turning to Captain Claret; who thereupon, waving Jack further off, fell into confidential discourse with his superior.