“You are then an officer of the Crown?”
“Would any other authority be respected in a vessel of the Crown? Death had left a vacancy in the second station of this—cruiser. Fortunately for the wants of the service, perhaps for myself, I was at hand to fill it.”
“But, tell me farther,” continued the governess, who appeared disposed to profit by the occasion to solve more doubts than one, “is it usual for the officers of a vessel of war to appear armed among their crew, in the manner I see here?”
“It is the pleasure of our Commander.”
“That Commander is evidently a skilful seaman, but one whose caprices and tastes are as extraordinary as I find his mien. I have surely seen him before; and, it would seem, but lately.”
Mrs Wyllys then became silent for several minutes. During the whole time, her eye never averted its gaze from the form of the calm and motionless being, who still maintained his attitude of repose, aloof from all that throng whom he had the address to make so entirely dependant on his authority. It seemed, for these few minutes, that the organs of the governess drunk in the smallest peculiarity of his person, and as if they would never tire of their gaze. Then, drawing a heavy and relieving breath, she once more remembered that she was not alone, and that others were silently, but observantly, awaiting the operation of her secret thoughts. Without manifesting any embarrassment, however, at an absence of mind that was far too common to surprise her pupil, the governess resumed the discourse where she had herself dropped it, bending her look again on Wilder.
“Is Captain Heidegger, then, long of your acquaintance?” she demanded.
“We have met before.”
“It should be a name of German origin, by the sound. Certain I am that it is new to me. The time has been when few officers, of his rank, in the service of the King, were unknown to me, at least in name. Is his family of long standing in England?”
“That is a question he may better answer himself,” said Wilder, glad to perceive that the subject of their discourse was approaching them, with the air of one who felt that none in that vessel might presume to dispute his right to mingle in any discourse that should please his fancy. “For the moment, Madam, my duty calls me elsewhere.”