"Captain Blewet is ordered to keep company with you, sir; and as soon as it is dark, I intend to send you into Plymouth under the frigate's convoy. Is she a nice ship, hey! Daly?"
"Why, Sir Gervaise, she's like a piece of broken crockery, just now, and one can't tell all her merits. She's not a bad goer, and weatherly, I think, all will call her. But she's thundering French, inside."
"We'll make her English in due time, sir. How are the leaks? do the pumps work freely?"
"Deuce the l'ake has she, Sir Gervaise, and the pumps suck like a nine months' babby. And if they didn't we're scarce the boys to find out the contrary, being but nineteen working hands."
"Very well, Daly; you can haul aboard your main-tack, now; remember, you're to go into Plymouth, as soon as it is dark. If you see any thing of Admiral Bluewater, tell him I rely on his support, and only wait for his appearance to finish Monsieur de Vervillin's job."
"I'll do all that, with hearty good will, sir. Pray, Sir Gervaise," added Daly, grinning, on the poop of the prize, whither he had got by this time, having walked aft as his ship went ahead, "how do you like French signals? For want of a better, we were driven to the classics!"
"Ay, you'd be bothered to explain all your own flags, I fancy. The name of the ship is the Victory, I am told; why did you put her in armour, and whip a kedge up against the poor woman?"
"It's according to the books, Sir Gervaise. Every word of it out of Cicero, and Cordairy, and Cornelius Nepos, and those sort of fellows. Oh! I went to school, sir, before I went to sea, as you say yourself, sometimes, Sir Gervaise; and literature is the same in Ireland, as it is all over the world. Victory needs armour, sir, in order to be victorious, and the anchor is to show that she doesn't belong to 'the cut and run' family. I am as sure that all was right, as I ever was of my moods and tenses."
"Very well, Daly," answered Sir Gervaise, laughing—"My lords shall know your merits in that way, and it may get you named a professor—keep your luff, or you'll be down on our sprit-sail-yard;—remember and follow the Druid."
Here the gentlemen waved their hands in adieu as usual, and la Victoire, clipped as she was of her wings, drew slowly past. The Druid succeeded, and Sir Gervaise simply gave Blewet his orders to see the prize into port, and to look after his own foremast. This ended the field day; the frigate luffing up to windward of the line again, leaving the Plantagenet in its rear. A few minutes later, the latter ship filled and stood after her consorts.