“I hope your honor will remember that I did my duty, and that I was disarmed while executing your orders.”
“I can remember nothing about it, Peters, except that it is rascally treatment, and such as I shall yet make this amphibious aquatic gentleman answer for. But lock the door-look as if nothing had happened, and——”
“Ah! your honor, that is not so easily done as your honor may please to think. I have not any doubt but there is the print of the breech of a musket stamped on my back and shoulders, as plainly to be seen as that light.”
“Then look as you please; but hold your peace, sirrah. Here is a crown to buy a plaster. I heard the dog throw away your musket on the stairs—go seek it, and return to your post; and when you are relieved, act as if nothing had happened. I take the responsibility on myself.”
The man obeyed; and when he was once more armed, Borroughcliffe, a good deal sobered by the surprise, made the best of his way to his own apartment, muttering threats and execrations against the “corps of marines and the whole race,” as he called them, “of aquatic amphibii.”
CHAPTER XVI.
“Away! away! the covey's fled the cover;
Put forth the dogs, and let the falcon fly—
I'll spend some leisure in the keen pursuit,
Nor longer waste my hours in sluggish quiet.”
The soldier passed the remainder of the night in the heavy sleep of a bacchanalian, and awoke late on the following morning, only when aroused by the entrance of his servant. When the customary summons had induced the captain to unclose his eyelids, he arose in his bed, and after performing the usual operation of a diligent friction on his organs of vision, he turned sternly to his man, and remarked with an ill-humor that seemed to implicate the innocent servant in the fault which his master condemned: