Captain Truck had the usual number of questions to answer, which he did in the following succinct and graphic manner, a reply that we hope will prove as satisfactory to the reader, as it was made to be, perforce, satisfactory to the curious on board.
"Had we stood on an hour longer, gentlemen, we should have been lost on the coast of Cornwall!" he said, pithily: "had we stopped where we were, the sloop-of-war would nave been down upon us in twenty minutes: by changing the course, in the way you have seen, he may get to leeward ward of us; if he find it out, he may change his own course, in the dark, being as likely to go wrong as to go right; or he may stand in, and set up the ribs of his majesty's ship Foam to dry among the rocks of the Lizard, where I hope all her people will get safely ashore, dry shod."
After waiting the result anxiously for an hour, the passengers retired to their rooms one by one; but Captain Truck did not quit the deck until the middle watch was set. Paul Blunt heard him enter his state-room, which was next to his own, and putting out his head, he inquired the news above. The worthy master had discovered something about this young man which created a respect for his nautical information, for he never misapplied a term, and he invariably answered all his questions promptly, and with respect.
"Dirtier, and dirtier," he said, in defiance of Mr. Dodge's opinion of the phrase, pulling off his pee-jacket, and laying aside his sow-wester; "a cap-full of wind, with just enough drizzle to take the comfort out of a man, and lacker him down like a boot."
"The ship has gone about?"
"Like a dancing-master with two toes. We have got her head to the southward and westward again; another reef in the topsails," (which word Mr. Truck pronounced tawsails, with great unction,) "England well under our lee, and the Atlantic ocean right before us. Six hours on this course, and we make a fair wind of it."
"And the sloop?"
Chapter IX.
The moon was now
Rising full orbed, but broken by a cloud.
The wind was hushed, and the sea mirror-like
ITALY.