The Two Admirals

by James Fenimore Cooper

"Simply, Soundings, because the process of ratiocination is dispensed with. Do you have to think in waring ship, now?—I'll put it to your own honour, for the answer."

"Think!—I should be a poor creature for a master, indeed, if much thinking were wanting in so simple a matter as tacking or veering. No—no—your real sea-dog has no occasion for much thinking, when he has his work before him."

"That'll just be it, gentlemen!—that'll be just what I'm telling ye," cried the doctor, exulting in the success of his artifice. "Not only will Mr. Soundings not think, when he has his ordinary duties to perform, but he holds the process itself in merited contempt, ye'll obsairve; and so my theory is established, by evidence of a pairty concerned; which is more than a postulate logically requires."

Here Magrath dropped his book, and laughed with that sort of hissing sound that seems peculiar to the genus of which he formed a part. He was still indulging in his triumph, when the first tap of the drum was heard. All listened; every ear pricking like that of a deer that hears the hound, when there followed—"r-r-r-ap tap—r-r-r-ap tap—r-r-r-ap tapa-tap-tap—rap-a-tap—a-rap-a-tap a-rap-a-tap—a-tap-tap."

"Instinct or reason, Sir Jarvy is going to quarters!" exclaimed the honourable. "I'd no notion we were near enough to the Monsieurs, for that!"

"Now," said Magrath, with a grinning sneer, as he rose to descend to the cock-pit, "there'll may be arise an occasion for a little learning, when I'll promise ye all the science that can be mustered in my unworthy knowledge. Soundings, I may have to heave the lead in the depths of your physical formation, in which case I'll just endeevour to avoid the breakers of ignorance."

"Go to the devil, or to the cock-pit, whichever you please, sir," answered the master; "I've served in six general actions, already, and have never been obliged to one of your kidney for so much as a bit of court-plaster or lint. With me, oakum answers for one, and canvass for the other."

While this was saying, all hands were in motion. The sea and marine officers looking for their side-arms, the surgeon carefully collecting his books, and the chaplain seizing a dish of cold beef, that was hurriedly set upon a table, carrying it down with him to his quarters, by way of taking it out of harm's way. In a minute, the gun-room was cleared of all who usually dwelt there, and their places were supplied by the seamen who manned the three or four thirty-two's that were mounted in the apartment, together with their opposites. As the sea-officers, in particular, appeared among the men, their faces assumed an air of authority, and their voices were heard calling out the order to "tumble up," as they hastened themselves to their several stations.

All this time, Sir Gervaise Oakes paced the poop. Bunting and the quarter-master were in readiness to hoist the new signal, and Greenly merely waited for the reports, to join the commander-in-chief. In about five minutes after the drum had given its first tap, these were completed, and the captain ascended to the poop.

"By standing on, on our present course, Captain Greenly," observed Sir Gervaise, anxious to justify to himself the evolution he contemplated, "the rear of our line and the van of the French will be brought within fair range of shot from each other, and, by an accident, we might lose a ship; since any vessel that was crippled, would necessarily sag directly down upon the enemy. Now, I propose to keep away in the Plantagenet, and just brush past the leading French ships, at about the distance the Warspite will have to pass, and so alter the face of matters a little. What do you think would be the consequence of such a man[oe]uvre?"