"It is out," rejoined the vice-admiral, as one would give emphasis to the report of a calamity. "Hey!—what? Isn't that a man they're running up to the end of it, Bunting? Level your glass, and let us know at once."
"A glass is not necessary to make out that much, Sir Gervaise. It is a man, beyond a doubt, and there he hangs at the boom-end, as if sentenced by a general court-martial."
Sir Gervaise now suppressed every expression of surprise, and his reserve was imitated, quite as a matter of course, by the twenty officers, who, by this time, had assembled on the poop. The Druid, keeping away, approached rapidly, and had soon crossed the flag-ship's wake. Here she came by the wind, and favoured by the momentum with which she had come down, and the addition of the main-sail, drew heavily but steadily up on her lee-quarter. Both vessels being close-hauled, it was not difficult steering; and by watching the helms closely, it would have been possible, perhaps, notwithstanding the heavy sea, to have brought the two hulls within ten yards of each other, and no harm should come of it. This was nearer, however, than it was necessary to approach; the studding-sail-boom, with the man suspended on the end of it, projecting twice that distance, beyond the vessel's bows. Still it was nice work; and while yet some thirty or forty feet from the perpendicular, the man on the boom-end made a sign for attention, swung a coil of line he hold, and when he saw hands raised to catch it, he made a cast. A lieutenant caught the rope, and instantly hauled in the slack. As the object was now understood, a dozen others laid hold of the line, and, at a common signal, when those on board the Plantagenet hauled in strongly, the people of the Druid lowered away. By this simple, but united movement, the man descended obliquely, leaping out of the bowline in which he had sat, and casting the whip adrift. Shaking himself to gain his footing, he raised his cap and bowed to Sir Gervaise, who now saw Wycherly Wychecombe on his poop.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"Yet weep not thou—the struggle is not o'er,
O victors of Philippi! many a field
Hath yielded palms to us:—one effort more,
By one stern conflict must our fate be sealed."
Mrs. Hemans.
As soon as the people of the Plantagenet, who had so far trespassed on discipline, when they perceived a man hanging at the end of the studding-sail-boom, as to appear in the rigging, on the booms, and on the guns, to watch the result, saw the stranger safely landed on the poop, they lifted their hats and caps, and, as one voice, greeted him with three cheers. The officers smiled at this outbreak of feeling, and the violation of usage was forgotten; the rigid discipline of a man-of-war even, giving way occasionally to the sudden impulses of natural feeling.
As the Druid approached the flag-ship, Captain Blewet had appeared in her weather mizzen-rigging, conning his vessel in person; and the order to luff, or keep off, had been given by his own voice, or by a gesture of his own hand. As soon as he saw Wycherly's feet on the poop of the Plantagenet, and his active form freed from the double-bowline, in which it had been seated, the captain made a wide sweep of the arm, to denote his desire to edge away; the helm of the frigate was borne up hard, and, as the two-decker surged ahead on the bosom of a sea, the Druid's bows were knocked off to leeward, leaving a space of about a hundred feet, or more, between the two ships, as it might be, in an instant. The same causes continuing to operate, the Plantagenet drove still farther ahead, while the frigate soon came to the wind again, a cable's-length to leeward, and abreast of the space between the admiral and his second, astern. Here, Captain Blewet seemed disposed to wait for further orders.
Sir Gervaise Oakes was not accustomed to betray any surprise he might feel at little events that occurred on duty. He returned the bow of Wycherly, coolly, and then, without question or play of feature, turned his eyes on the further movements of the Druid. Satisfied that all was right with the frigate, he directed the messenger to follow him, and went below himself, leaving Wycherly to obey as fast as the many inquiries he had to answer as he descended the ladders would allow. Atwood, an interested observer of what had passed, noted that Captain Greenly, of all present, was the only person who seemed indifferent to the nature of the communication the stranger might bring, though perhaps the only one entitled by rank to put an interrogatory.