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While waiting for an answer, one day Jack and Jim and I were walking down the High Street, when we saw a large placard stating that the Thisbe frigate, commissioned by Captain Rogers, was in want of hands. "I shouldn't wonder but what he was my old skipper," observed Jack.
The spoilers tempt no second blow; They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them as they go." Pyramus was the handsomest youth, and Thisbe the fairest maiden, in all Babylonia, where Semiramis reigned. Their parents occupied adjoining houses; and neighborhood brought the young people together, and acquaintance ripened into love. They would gladly have married, but their parents forbade.
Till the pilot vessel re-entered the Hooghly, and Morton lost sight of the Indiaman, his eye was seldom off her, while his thoughts were even still more constant. Once more he was on board the "Thisbe." He felt no inclination to revisit Calcutta, and he only went up there once to pay his respects to Mrs Edmonstone. She very naturally talked of Miss Armytage, and spoke warmly in her praise.
The second lieutenant of the "Thisbe" and his companions soon made their appearance, having clambered in over the bows; and the French frigate, which was found to be the "Concorde" one of the largest class in the French navy was formally taken possession of.
The "Thisbe" was commanded by one they both loved and respected honest, gallant, fighting Tom Calder. Tom had won his upward way by courage and zeal, rarely surpassed. The Lords of the Admiralty could not refuse him his promotion, had they wished it. The whole navy would have cried out at the injustice. Happily, honest Tom had no one to whisper evil against him.
Bobby did his best to repay the kindness he had received, by his constant attention to the wants of the wounded boatswain. Ronald had now to mess with the midshipmen. One of his first duties was to visit the prize, as soon as the boats had been got ready to transfer the prisoners to the "Thisbe."
When Thisbe saw her own cloak and the empty sheath, she guessed that, thinking her dead, he had sought death himself. "'Twas by your own hand you fell," she cried, "a victim to love, and love will give my hand strength to do the like. Since those who were parted in life are united in death, perhaps our sorrowing parents will grant us the boon of a common tomb.
Moore, in the "Sylph's Ball," speaking of Davy's Safety Lamp, is reminded of the wall that separated Thisbe and her lover: "O for that Lamp's metallic gauze, That curtain of protecting wire, Which Davy delicately draws Around illicit, dangerous fire! In Mickle's translation of the "Lusiad" occurs the following allusion to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the metamorphosis of the mulberries.
At length, however, the "Thisbe" touched at Ponte de Galle, when she fell in with another frigate direct from England, which had letters on board for her. Ronald got one from his father.
The same day he paid Headland a visit on board the Thisbe, which had just come out of dock and been brought alongside the hulk. She was a remarkably fine corvette of eighteen guns, just such a craft as a young officer would be proud to command, and, from her build, both he and Headland thought she would prove very fast.
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