I turned. It was Mrs. Radcliffe, and with her was Miss Temple. With the exception of a ‘good morning’ or a ‘good night,’ I had never exchanged a syllable with this lady in all the time she and I had been together on shipboard. Her kind little face fluttered jerkily at me as she asked the question in a manner to remind one of the movements of the head of a hen. Miss Temple stood like a statue, swaying to the majestic perpendicular of her figure upon the rolling deck without the least visible effort to keep her balance, her dark and shining eyes fixed upon the brig.
‘Her gunners,’ said I, ‘would need to be practised marksmen, I should say, to hit us from such a tumbling platform as that yonder.’
‘Just my opinion, as I told you, Louise,’ she exclaimed.
‘If she were to begin to fire,’ exclaimed the girl, keeping her gaze bent seawards, ‘she would be sure to hit us, though it were by chance.’
‘Very possibly,’ said I.
‘There will be some wind soon, I think, don’t you?’ said Mrs. Radcliffe.
‘I hope so,’ I answered.
‘In that case,’ said she, ‘we shall be able to sail away and escape, shan’t we?’
‘She will chase us,’ exclaimed Miss Temple; ‘and as she sails faster than we do, she will catch us!’
‘Now, is that likely?’ cried Mrs. Radcliffe, with a nervous toss of her head at me.