“The legions were landed at Hampton Road this morning and reached camp an hour gone,” explained the major. Still retaining her hand, he turned to Clowes and said, “If I understood you aright, my Lord, you told me you knew not where Miss Meredith was to be found?”
“And Miss Meredith will bear me out in the statement, sir, though I am quite willing that my word should stand by itself,” retorted the commissary, tartly. “Nor am I in the habit of having it questioned by colonial striplings,” he added insultingly.
“Nor am I—” began Philemon, heatedly; but Janice checked him by laying her free hand on his arm.
“’T is naught to take umbrage at, Phil,” she said dissuadingly, “and do not by quarrelling over a foolish nothing spoil my pleasure in seeing you.”
“That I’ll not,” acceded the major, heartily. “Ah, Janice,” he cried, unable to contain himself even before the baron, “if you knew the thrill your words give me. Are you truly glad to see me?”
“Yes, Phil, or I would not say so,” answered the girl, ingenuously.
Lord Clowes, a scowl on his face, turned from the two, to avoid sight of Hennion’s look of gladness. This brought him gazing seaward, and he gave an exclamation. “Ho! What ’s here?”
The two faced about at his question, to see, just appearing from behind the curve of the land to the southward, a full-rigged ship, one mass of canvas from deck to spintle-heads, and with a single row of ports which bespoke the man-of-war.
“’T is a frigate,” announced Clowes, “and no doubt sent to convoy the transports we have been awaiting. Yes; there comes another. ’T is the fleet, beyond question,” he continued, as the first vessel having opened from the land, the bowsprit of a second began to appear.
The three stood silent as the two ships towering pyramids of sails, making them marvels of beauty, swept onward with slow dignity across the mouth of the York River, at this point nearly three miles wide, toward the Gloucester shore. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile, a third and larger vessel came sweeping into view, her two rows of ports showing her to be a line-of-battle ship. Barely was she clear of the land when a string of small flags broke out from her mizzen rigging, and almost as if by magic, the yard arms of all three vessels were alive with men, and royals, top gallants, and mainsails with machine-like precision were dewed up and furled, and each ship, stripped of all but its topsails, rounded to, with its head to the wind.