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"Aye, aye, sir that can't be denied, Captain Cuffe; yet it's a hard life that passes altogether without hope." This was uttered with an expression of melancholy that said more for Clinch's character than Cuffe had witnessed in the man for years, and it revived many early impressions in his favor.
You know it's low water with us as to men, just now; and our fellows are not all to be trusted ashore, in a country that is full of stone walls, good wine, and pretty girls." "I always take a set of regular steady ones with me, Captain Cuffe; I haven't lost a man from a boat these five years." "You must have some secret, then, worth knowing; for even the admirals sometimes lose their barge-men.
Cuffe was near the just medium, Inclining a little too much, perhaps, to the naval dandy. The Proserpine, thanks to the builders of Toulon, was thought to be the handsomest model then afloat in the Mediterranean, and, like an established beauty, all who belonged to her were fond of decorating her and of showing her fine proportions to advantage.
To me she grows very dim she must be leaving us fast. Be careful to note if there are any signs of an intention to sheer to the westward." "That can hardly be done without jibing her forward lug hang me, Captain Cuffe, if I can see her at all. Ah! here she is, dead ahead as before, but as dim as a ghost.
The letter concluded with an earnest request that another frigate, which was mentioned, her captain being junior to Cuffe, and a fast-sailing sloop that was lying off Naples might be sent down to assist him in "heading off" the lugger, as he feared the latter was too swift to be overtaken by the Proserpine alone, more especially in the light winds which prevailed.
Still the preservation of Raoul's life, and the capture of the lugger, were now objects of nearly equal interest with Cuffe, and he felt disposed to neglect no plausible means of effecting either. A sign of approbation was all the lieutenant needed; and in a few minutes Ithuel stood again in the presence of his captain. "Here is an opportunity for you to fetch up a good deal of leeway.
Two hours, however, satisfied all on board the latter ship that they were on a wrong scent, and that the vessel to leeward was their own consort, the sloop; Lyon having, in his eagerness to get the prize before she could be seen from the other ships, carried the Ring-dove quite within the bay, and thus misled Cuffe and Sir Frederick.
Yet I never believed half as devoutly in the twenty-nine articles as " "I believe there are thirty-nine of them, Captain Cuffe," modestly put in Griffin. "Well, thirty-nine, if you will what signifies ten, more or less, in such matters? A man is ordered to believe them all, if there were a hundred. But I never believed in them as devoutly as I believed in the destruction of that infernal picaroon.
The two gigs could not be more than a hundred yards from the yawl, and Ithuel knew that they were the two fastest-rowing boats of the English fleet so fast, indeed, that Cuffe and his lieutenants had made several successful matches with them, against the officers of different vessels. "Hist!" said Ghita, whose heart was in her mouth. "Oh! Raoul, they come!"
Cuffe had no great veneration for privateersmen, nor was his estimate of their morality at all unreasonable, when he inferred that one who served with gain for his principal object would not long hesitate about purchasing his own life by the betrayal of a secret like that he now asked.
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