This was, for Colonel Armytage, saying a great deal. His companions agreed with him. It did not occur to them that a man might refuse to fight a duel from a higher motive than knowing that he was so clearly right that the world could not help taking his part.
The observations she overheard made Edda’s heart glow and beat quicker than wont. To every word of praise it warmly responded.
“Yet they know not one-tenth part of his worth; his nobleness of mind, his generosity, his tenderness,” she said to herself.
Edda Armytage might, perhaps, have been inclined to over-estimate his various good qualities, gallant fellow as he undoubtedly was.
The conversation to which she was listening was cut short by a cry from the mast-head of “A sail in sight.”
“Where away?” inquired Sims, who had charge of the deck.
“To the southward,” was the answer.
That was not the direction the frigate was expected to appear. The ship was not yet clear of the reefs. Sims went aloft, and came down with an anxious look. He told Glover that he did not like the look of the stranger. “She is a big ship, with square yards and white canvas: an enemy, I am certain,” he observed. “If she was to catch us jammed up among these reefs she might handle us in a way which would make us look foolish.”
“We shall be clear, sir, before she can get near us,” answered Glover. “Besides, we have some bull-dogs as well as she has.”
“Mere pop-guns to hers, depend on that,” observed Sims. “What do you say to her being a heavy frigate, capable of blowing this old tea-chest out of the water?”