"Our turn will soon come, sir," said the gallant boy, "and, for one, I shall not be sorry to be in motion. Those chaps on board the Plantagenet will swagger like so many Dons, if they should happen to get a broadside at Monsieur de Vervillin, while we are lying here, under the shore, like a gentleman's yacht hauled into a bay, that the ladies might eat without disturbing their stomachs."
"Little fear of that, Geoffrey. The Active is too light of foot, especially in the weather we have had, to suffer heavy ships to be so close on her heels. She must have had some fifteen or twenty miles the start, and the French have been compelled to double Cape la Hogue and Alderney, before they could even look this way. If coming down channel at all, they are fully fifty miles to the eastward; and should our van stretch far enough by morning to head them off, it will bring us handsomely to windward. Sir Gervaise never set a better trap, than he has done this very day. The Elizabeth has her hands full, boy, and the wind seems to be getting scant for her. If it knock her off much more, it will bring the flood on her weather-bow, and compel her to tack. This will throw the rear of our line into confusion!"
"What should we do, sir, in such a case? It would never answer to leave poor Sir Jarvy out there, by himself!"
"We would try not to do that!" returned Bluewater, smiling at the affectionate solicitude of the lad, a solicitude that caused him slightly to forget his habitual respect for the commander-in-chief, and to adopt the sobriquet of the fleet. "In such a case, it would become my duty to collect as many ships as I could, and to make the best of our way towards the place where we might hope to fall in with the others, in the morning. There is little danger of losing each other, for any length of time, in these narrow waters, and I have few apprehensions of the French being far enough west, to fall in with our leading vessels before morning. If they should, indeed, Geoffrey—"
"Ay, sir, if they should, I know well enough what would come to pass!"
"What, boy?—On the supposition that Monsieur de Vervillin did meet with Sir Gervaise by day-break, what, in your experienced eyes, seem most likely to be the consequences?"
"Why, sir, Sir Jarvy, would go at 'em, like a dolphin at a flying-fish; and if he should really happen to catch one or two of 'em, there'll be no sailing in company with the Plantagenet's, for us Cæsar's!—When we had the last 'bout with Monsieur de Gravelin, they were as saucy as peacocks, because we didn't close until their fore-yard and mizzen-top-gallant-mast were gone, although the shift of wind brought us dead to leeward, and, after all, we had eleven men the most hurt in the fight. You don't know them Plantagenet's, sir; for they never dare say any thing before you!"
"Not to the discredit of my young Cæsars, I'll answer for it. Yet, you'll remember Sir Gervaise gave us full credit, in his despatches."
"Yes, sir, all very true. Sir Gervaise knows better; and then he understands what the Cæsar is; and what she can do, and has done. But it's a very different matter with his youngsters, who fancy because they carry a red flag at the fore, they are so many Blakes and Howards, themselves. There's Jack Oldcastle, now; he's always talking of our reefers as if there was no sea-blood in our veins, and that just because his own father happened to be a captain—a commodore, he says, because he happened once to have three frigates under his orders."
"Well, that would make a commodore, for the time being. But, surely he does not claim privilege for the Oldcastle blood, over that of the Clevelands!"