Stubbornly, doggedly, as it ever is when a man wrestles with himself, so he wrestled now. And it was all of no avail. It was useless! But one woman had ever dawned a star above his existence; the woman who--star-like!--had fallen away from him for ever.
"Such love should never have been," he would continue musing, "never have been, or, coming into my life, should have stayed always with me. Other men knew better what to do than I--could fool women, for a pastime, into loving them, could lead them on to madness and then grow weary and fling them contemptuously aside. And I despised such men. Do I despise them now?"
But only a moment later he would find his own answer to his own question, and would whisper to himself, "Yes. Even as it is, ours was the fonder, better love."
Keeping much to himself--as much as could be in a ship of war full of action, and chasing sometimes a vessel of the enemy's that hove in sight, or fleeing on others from two or three of their ships with which it would have been madness to risk an encounter--he went about his duties, performing each and all as though he lived for them alone; as though, too, his frame was impervious to fatigue or the burden of a rough, hard life. With Sir Geoffrey he could hold but little communion--that, considering the different positions each was now filling, would have been impossible!--though sometimes they could be together in the captain's cabin for a short time. And then the latter would say words to the other of approbation and approval, as well as comfort, which, had it not been that all his future was blank and hopeless, must have cheered him. But, because such was the case, those words could not do so, and murmuring again, as he had murmured so often, "It is too late," he would withdraw to his solitude.
Yet, now, every day brought it more home to those in the English fleet that, at last, the great conflict was drawing near. Before they had been two days out of Torbay on this their last putting to sea, a French bilander had been captured, from which the Admiral obtained some news of Conflans, while, on the morning of the 17th, the Magnanime (also a capture) let fly her top-gallant sheets as a signal that she had sighted something that might be, or might belong to, the enemy. And a moment later the Mignonne--which had been abreast of the lee line--was signalled to stand to the north to see what she could discover. What she did discover, when under full sail she had set forth in the direction ordered, was a French privateer making off as fast as she could go in the direction of the French coast. Also, ahead of her, some two or three miles away, was a fleet of vessels, which, cruelly enough, did not stand by to assist their slower sister.
"She must be ours," cried Sir Geoffrey now, as, flinging the waves off from her forefoot contemptuously, the Mignonne, with every sheet fisted home, tore through the turbulent waters. "She must be ours. We gain upon her, too." Then he cried to the master, "Lay me alongside of her, as soon as possible. And tell the master-gunner to be ready."
That the privateer knew she was outpaced was evident from the manner in which she tacked--as the hare tacks and twists before the hound unleashed; while she showed that she did not mean to yield without a fight if she yielded at all. Coming round suddenly when the Mignonne was almost close upon her, she fired three of her lower deck guns, the English vessel only escaping being hit by the tossing of the waves which carried her high upon their crests, while the balls passed harmlessly beneath her.
That Granger was at his place was evident a moment later, when, from the gun-deck of the frigate, there poured forth a broadside that, as it struck the privateer, sent her keeling over to her larboard side. Then, as she recovered herself and the Mignonne came round on the wind, another broadside belched forth.
"That has done it," cried Geoffrey. "Fire no more. She will sink in ten minutes. Lower away there to save as many as may be. They are taking to the water already."
However many might be taking to the water, as he said, it was certain that none would escape in the privateer's boats. For now she lay over so much that it was impossible any such should be lowered from her; and that she would founder in a few moments, sucking down with her everything in the immediate neighbourhood, was not to be doubted. There remained nothing, consequently, but for those in the ship to throw themselves into the sea and to take their chance of either being picked up by the Mignonne's boats, or of being engulfed by the sinking vessel, or--which was equally likely--have the breath beaten out of them by the waves that ran mountains high.