‘She’s a beauty, anyway,’ I answered; ‘no builder’s yard ever turned out anything sweeter in the shape of a hull—a trifle too lofty, perhaps. For my part, I hate everything above royals. Give me short mastheads, the royal-yard sitting close under the track, English frigate-fashion’—I was proceeding.
‘No, no; I don’t mean that, Mr. Dugdale,’ he interrupted with a hint of a seaman’s impatience at my criticism.
‘What, then?’ I asked.
‘Does she look honest, think you?’ said he.
‘Ha!’ cried I: ‘now I understand.’
‘Hush! not a word if you please,’ he exclaimed with a glance along the poop; ‘the ladies must on no account be frightened, and it is but a mere suspicion on Captain Keeling’s part at best. Yet he has had some acquaintance with gentry of her kind, if, indeed, yonder chap be of the denomination he conjectures.’
‘She must have been stealthily sneaking down upon us,’ I exclaimed, ‘to occupy her present position, otherwise she should be a league distant out on the beam. But then such a hull as that must yield to a catspaw that wouldn’t blow a feather out of the Countess Ida’s mizzen-top. What has been seen to excite misgiving, Mr. Prance?’
‘Too many of a crew, sir,’ he answered; ‘the outline of a long-tom on her forecastle, but ill-concealed by the raffle thrown over it. Six guns of a side, Mr. Dugdale, though the closed ports hide their grins.’
‘She will not attempt anything with a big chap like us, surely.’
At that moment the captain called him, and he walked aft.