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shall feel it as a particular favour if you will permit me to repair on
board for a few minutes."
"With all my heart," cried Captain Truck: "if you will give me room, I
will back my main-topsail, but I wish to lay my head off shore. This
gentleman understands Vattel, and we shall have no trouble with him. Keep
the anchor clear Mr. Leach, for 'fair words butter no parsnips.' Still,
he is a gentleman;--and, Saunders, put a bottle of the old Madeira on the
cabin table."
Captain Ducie now left the rigging in which he had stood, and the corvette
luffed off to the eastward, to give room to the packet, where she hove-to
with her fore-topsail aback. The Montauk followed, taking a position under
her lee. A quarter-boat was lowered, and in five minutes its oars were
tossed at the packet's lee-gangway, when the commander of the corvette
ascended the ship's side, followed by a middle-aged man in the dress of a
civilian, and a chubby-faced midshipman.
No one could mistake Captain Ducie for anything but a gentleman. He was
handsome, well-formed, and about five-and-twenty. The bow he made to Eve,
with whose beauty and air he seemed instantly struck, would have become a
drawing-room; but he was too much of an officer to permit any further
attention to escape him until he had paid his respects to, and received
the compliments of, Captain Truck. He then turned to the ladies and Mr.
Effingham, and repeated his salutations.
"I fear," he said, "my duty has made me the unwilling instrument of
prolonging your passage, for I believe few ladies love the ocean
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sufficiently, easily to forgive those who lengthen its disagreeables."
"We are old travellers, and know how to allow for the obligations of
duty," Mr. Effingham civilly answered.
"That they do, sir," put in Captain Truck; "and it was never my good
fortune to have a more agreeable set of passengers. Mr. Effingham, the
Honourable Captain Ducie;--the Honourable Captain Ducie, Mr.
Effingham;--Mr. John Effingham, Mam'selle V.A.V." endeavouring always to
imitate Eve's pronunciation of the name;--"Mr. Dodge, the Honourable
Captain Ducie; the Honourable Captain Ducie, Mr. Dodge."
The Honourable Captain Ducie and all the others, the editor of the Active
Inquirer excepted, smiled slightly, though they respectively bowed and
curtseyed; but Mr. Dodge, who conceived himself entitled to be formally
introduced to every one he met, and to know all he saw, whether introduced
or not, stepped forward promptly, and shook Mr. Ducie very cordially
by the hand.
Captain Truck now turned in quest of some one else to introduce; Mr.
Sharp stood near the capstan, and Paul had retired as far aft as the
hurricane-house.
"I am happy to see you in the Montauk," added Captain Truck, insensibly
leading the other towards the capstan, "and am sorry I had not the
satisfaction of meeting you in England. The Honourable Captain Ducie, Mr.
Sharp, Mr. Sharp, the Honourable Captain--"
"George Templemore!" exclaimed the commander of the corvette, looking from
one to the other.
"Charles Ducie!" exclaimed the _soi-disant_ Mr. Sharp.
"Here then is an end of part of my hopes, and we have been on a wrong
scent the whole time."
"Perhaps not, Ducie: explain yourself."
"You must have perceived my endeavours to speak you, from the moment you
sailed?"
"To _speak_ us!" cried Captain Truck. "Yes, sir, we _did_ observe your
endeavours to _speak_ us."
"It was because I was given to understand that one _calling_ himself Sir
George Templemore, an impostor, however, had taken passage in this ship;
and here I find that we have been misled, by the real Sir George
Templemore's having chosen to come this way instead of coming by the
Liverpool ship. So much for your confounded fashionable caprices,
Templemore, which never lets you know in the morning whether you are to
shoot yourself or to get married before night."
"And is this gentleman Sir George Templemore?" pithily demanded Captain
Truck.
"For that I can vouch, on the knowledge of my whole life."
"And we know this to be true, and have known it since the day we sailed,"
observed Mr. Effingham.
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Captain Truck was accustomed to passengers under false names, but never
before had he been so completely mystified.
"And pray, sir," he inquired of the baronet, "are you a member of
Parliament?"
"I have that honour."
"And Templemore Hall is your residence, and you have come out to look at
the Canadas?"
"I am the owner of Templemore Hall, and hope to look at the Canadas
before I return."
"And," turning to Captain Ducie, "you sailed in quest of another Sir
George Templemore--a false one?"
"That is a part of my errand," returned Captain Ducie, smiling.
"Nothing else?--you are certain, sir, that this is the whole of your
errand?"
"I confess to another motive," rejoined the other, scarce knowing how to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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