‘As how?’ cried Colledge.
‘Oh, my dear fellow, see what a reflecting eye the ocean has,’ said I; ‘it stares back in glory to the glory that looks down upon it. Mould and clay can’t do that, you know.’
‘True,’ said the lieutenant.
‘Pray,’ said I, addressing him, ‘when you overhauled that hull yonder, did you meet with anything to warrant our suspicion that she was a rover?’
‘I found no papers,’ said he; ‘forward, she is burnt into a shell. All her guns are gone—dropped overboard, I suppose, to keep her afloat. She has a little round-house aft, and in it sits a man.’
‘A man?’ exclaimed Miss Temple.
‘He sits in a musing posture,’ continued the lieutenant; ‘he frowns, and seems vexed. He holds a feather pen in one hand, and supports his head on the elbow of his left arm, but he doesn’t write: possibly because there is no ink and the wind seems to have blown his paper away.’
‘Is he dead?’ exclaimed Miss Temple.
‘Quite,’ responded the lieutenant, with a smile of enjoyment of her beauty.
‘God bless me!’ cried Colledge, staring at the hull under the sharp of his hand.