"I trust, at least, you have not forgotten Richard Bluewater?" continued the Duke, "he who fell in our last action with the Comte de Vervillin?"
A gleam of intelligence shot into the rigid and wrinkled face; the eye lighted, and a painful smile struggled around the lips.
"What, Dick!" he exclaimed, in a voice stronger than that in which he had previously spoken. "Dick! hey! duke? good, excellent Dick? We were midshipmen together, my lord duke; and I loved him like a brother!"
"I knew you did! and I dare say now you can recollect the melancholy occasion of his death?"
"Is Dick dead?" asked the admiral, with a vacant gaze.
"Lord—Lord, Sir Jarvy, you knows he is, and that 'ere marvel constructure is his monerment—now you must remember the old Planter, and the County of Fairvillian, and the threshing we guv'd him?"
"Pardon me, Galleygo; there is no occasion for warmth. When I was a midshipman, warmth of expression was disapproved of by all the elder officers."
"You cause me to lose ground," said the Duke, looking at the steward by way of bidding him be silent: "is it not extraordinary, Sir Wycherly, how his mind reverts to his youth, overlooking the scenes of latter life! Yes, Dick is dead, Sir Gervaise. He fell in that battle in which you were doubled on by the French—when you had le Foudroyant on one side of you, and le Pluton on the other—"
"I remember it!" interrupted Sir Gervaise, in a clear strong voice, his eye flashing with something like the fire of youth—"I remember it! Le Foudroyant was on our starboard beam; le Pluton a little on our larboard bow—Bunting had gone aloft to look out for Bluewater—no—poor Bunting was killed—"
"Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, who afterwards married Mildred Bluewater, Dick's niece," put in the baronet, himself, almost as eager as the admiral had now become; "Sir Wycherly Wychecombe had been aloft, but was returned to report the Pluton coming down!"