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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Of course you mean the Cæsar; well, I'm quite of your way of thinking, though Sir Gervaise manages never to be in a slow ship. I suppose you know, Stowel, that Monsieur de Vervillin is out, and that we may expect to see or hear something of him, to-morrow."
As soon as the Comte de Vervillin perceived that the English were disposed to come nearer, he signalled his own division to bear up, and to run off dead before the wind, under their top-sails, commencing astern; which reversed his order of sailing, and brought le Foudroyant in the rear, or nearest to the enemy. This was no sooner done, than he settled all his top-sails on the caps.
"I trust, at least, you have not forgotten Richard Bluewater?" continued the Duke, "he who fell in our last action with the Comte de Vervillin?" A gleam of intelligence shot into the rigid and wrinkled face; the eye lighted, and a painful smile struggled around the lips. "What, Dick!" he exclaimed, in a voice stronger than that in which he had previously spoken.
"I have reflected on them, Dick," he said, "even while my thoughts have seemed to be occupied with the concerns of others. If de Vervillin is out, he must still be to the eastward of us; for, running as the tides do on the French coast, he can hardly have made much westing with this light south-west wind.
At this instant the whole French and English lines opened their fire, from van to rear, as far as their guns would bear, or the shot tell. "Now, sir, now is our time to close with de Vervillin!" exclaimed Greenly, the instant he perceived the manner in which his ship was crippled. "In our close order we might hope to make a thorough wreck of him." "Not so, Greenly," returned Sir Gervaise calmly.
On the supposition that Monsieur de Vervillin did meet with Sir Gervaise by day-break, what, in your experienced eyes, seem most likely to be the consequences?" "Why, sir, Sir Jarvy, would go at 'em, like a dolphin at a flying-fish; and if he should really happen to catch one or two of 'em, there'll be no sailing in company with the Plantagenet's, for us Cæsar's!
"No signs of de Vervillin, hey! Greenly?" the admiral asked, when his survey of the whole fleet had ended. "I was in hopes we might see something of him, when the light returned this morning." "Perhaps it is quite as well as it is, Sir Gervaise," returned the captain.
To increase this feeling, just as Sir Gervaise's foot reached the poop, the whole French line displayed their ensigns, and le Foudroyant fired a gun to windward. "Hey! Greenly?" exclaimed the English commander-in-chief; "this is a manly defiance, and coming from M. de Vervillin, it means something!
Bury, appeared in the gun-room. His arrival caused one or two of the mess to glance upward at him, though no one spoke but the junior lieutenant, who, being an honourable, was at his ease with every one on board, short of the captain. "What's the news from deck, Bury?" asked this officer, a youth of twenty, his senior being a man ten years older. "Is Mr. de Vervillin thinking of running away yet?"
I believe there is no three-decker in that squadron?" "There you've made a small mistake, Sir Gervaise, as the Comte de Vervillin had his flag in the largest three-decker of France; le Bourbon 120. The rest of his ships are like our own, though much fuller manned." "Never mind, Blue never mind: we'll put two on the Bourbon, and try to make our frigates of use.
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