"Then, to go back to the point where you began, why do you almost wish that I were second or third lieutenant, instead of executive officer, of the Bellevite, Captain?" continued Christy, rising from his seat, and fixing an earnest gaze upon the face of the commander, for he was very sensitive, and he could not help feeling that he had been lacking in something that would make him a better executive officer than he was.
"Mr. Ballard, the second lieutenant, and Mr. Walbrook, the third, are gentlemen of the highest grade, and excellent officers; but they are both somewhat wanting in dash and cool impetuosity."
"'Cool impetuosity' is very good, Captain," added Christy with a laugh.
"But that is precisely what I mean, my boy, and no two words could express the idea any better. You cannot carry an enemy by boarding with the same precision you man the yards on a ceremonious occasion, or as a regiment of soldiers go on dress parade. It requires vim, dash, spirit. The officers named have this quality in a very considerable degree, yet not enough of it. But what they lack more is ingenuity, fertility in expedients, and the expansive view which enables them to take advantage promptly of circumstances. You never lose your head, Christy."
"I never knew the gentlemen named to lose their heads, and I have always regarded them as model officers," replied the first lieutenant.
"And so they are: you are quite right, my dear boy; but it is possible for them to be all you say, and yet, like the young man of great possessions in the Scripture, to lack one thing. I should not dare to exchange my second and third lieutenants for any others if I had the opportunity."
"I confess that I do not understand you yet, Captain."
The commander rose from his seat, stretched himself, and then looked about the deck. Taking his camp-stool in his hand he carried it over to the port side of the quarter-deck, and planted it close to the bulwarks. The second lieutenant was the officer of the deck, and was pacing the planks on the starboard side, while the lookouts in the foretop and on the top-gallant forecastle were attending closely to their duty, doubtless with a vision of more prize money floating through their brains.
The Bellevite, with the fires banked in the furnaces, was at anchor off the entrance to Mobile Bay, about two miles east of Sand Island Lighthouse, and the same distance south of the narrow neck of land on the western extremity of which Fort Morgan is located. Her commander had chosen this position for a purpose; for several weeks before, while the Bellevite was absent on a special mission, a remarkably fast steamer called the Trafalgar had run the blockade inward.
Captain Passford, Senior, through his agents in England, had some information in regard to this vessel, which he had sent to Captain Breaker. Unlike most of the blockade-runners built for this particular service, she had been constructed in the most substantial manner for an English millionaire, who had insisted that she should be built as strong as the best of steel could make her, for he intended to make a voyage around the world in her.