“My share alone is little short of a hundred thousand pounds,” he exclaimed, showing Morton a sheet of paper on which he had been making a rough calculation—“a splendid fortune for a man of moderate wishes. I wish that you had a larger share. We captains get the lion’s part certainly; but perhaps it is as well as it is. What a stimulus it is to an officer to exert himself to obtain command in time of war.”
“Yes,” thought Morton; “but let men exert themselves to the utmost, how many fail to obtain the desired rank, or if they get that, the coveted wealth!”
“Remember, however, Morton,” continued Lord Claymore, “I have promised to assist you in establishing your claims, or your father’s rather, whatever they are. He may be the son of a peasant, or noble. No one cares less for what is called gentle blood than I do; but it is not the estimate which we set on an article, but at which the world at large holds it, which is its true value. I don’t feel happier because I am the possessor of a hundred thousand pounds than I did ten years ago when I was a beggar; but depend on it, the world will esteem me much more highly than it did.”
Morton always listened with pleasure to the remarks which dropped from his captain’s lips, always full of shrewdness and good sense.
It was now time for the “Pallas” to return home. Four prizes had been despatched to England. All were anxious to ascertain that they had arrived there safely.
“Little chance of that,” observed Hardman; “plenty of the enemy’s cruisers about, to snap them up.”
Though homeward bound, as bright a look-out as ever was kept, in the hopes that another prize might be taken.
When off the coast of Portugal, at dawn one morning, a light silvery fog lay on the water, bright but sufficiently opaque to conceal all objects even close at hand. The wind at dawn was light, but as the sun rose, so did the breeze, and the royals and top-gallant sails, which had at first been set, were, one after the other, taken off the frigate.
“This fog is, indeed, provoking. We may run by a whole convoy of the enemy’s merchantmen without seeing them,” observed Morton, who had become as eager as the most avaricious of his shipmates in the pursuit of wealth, by the royal road opened up before them.
“Of course,” answered Hardman: “very likely at this moment we are passing within hail of some Spanish galleons, whose cargoes would make every man on board independent for life.”