"And you look as if the roast beef of Old England smokes in the gunroom," answered Hardy.
"So help me God, then," cried the midshipman with heat, "nothing has fed us since Rio but salt horse. Where's your crew?" and he looked at the girl without greatly admiring her, for Julia was very draggled and broken about the hat, and dejected about the hair and white and worn, and she knew she was all this with a girl's distress.
"The crew are before you," replied Hardy, languidly pointing at the dog.
"What do you want?" said the midshipman, directing his eyes aloft.
"The help of the nation represented by your ship of state," answered Hardy.
The midshipman, who was a gentleman, perceived that the grim, unshorn, labour-wearied man on the chair was a gentleman, whatever might be his rating aboard a merchantman, and his manner changed.
"You are in a very odd situation," said he. "What a magnificent dog! What is your story, that I may return and report it to the captain?"
It took Hardy ten minutes to relate the ship's adventure, and the midshipman listened to it with parted lips, just as his face would overhang a thrilling novel which is true with all those touches that make the world akin.
"Well," said he when Hardy had finished, "I always thought going into the Navy was going to sea, but that's the real flag of adventure," he added, with a glance at the inverted ensign. "You want help and deserve it, and I'll go to the ship, and report."
He touched his cap with a look of pitying admiration at Julia. It was not the admiration of a man for a pretty face, but for the heart of a lioness.