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As he rose he caught my eye and beckoned me to follow him, which I did after duly making my bow to the company. When we reached the deck the fog was so thick that it was as much as we could do to see the length of the ship. "Just as I expected," remarked my companion. "How are we to find the creek in such weather as this, Mr Hawkesley?"
"I suppose you are the young gentleman about whom Captain Vernon was speaking to me yesterday. What is your name?" I told him. "Ah! Hawkesley! yes, that is the name. I remember now. Captain Vernon told me that although you have never been to sea as yet you are not altogether a greenhorn. What can you do?"
I beg your pardon, Hawkesley; I hope I haven't hurt you. Why, you never mean to say you have had to fight for the schooner?" Austin interrupted, aghast. "Well, we took her by surprise; but her people proved very troublesome, and very pertinacious in their efforts to get her back again," Smellie replied. "But, come, let us get on board the old Daphne once more.
Mr Austin opened the conversation with: "Well, Hawkesley, what do you think of our friend Monsieur Le Breton, now that you have had an opportunity of bettering your acquaintance with him?" "Well, sir," I replied; "on the whole I am inclined to think that there is just a bare possibility of my having been mistaken in my estimate of him and of the character of the brig. Still "
I heard a voice Madre Dolores' exclaim from an adjacent berth, the door of which was closed. "Who calls?" "I Dick Hawkesley," I replied. "Don't you recognise my voice, Madre?" "Ay, to be sure I do rum" was the reply.
"There, Hawkesley, what do you think of that for a compliment?" laughed the skipper. "So, monsieur," he resumed, "you were about to blow us up, eh? Very kind of you, I'm sure. Perhaps you will increase our obligation to you by informing me what you have done with Mr Austin?" "Done wiz him!" reiterated Le Breton with a diabolical sneer.
Should you by any chance escape the coming horrors of this night, Hawkesley, and live to reach England once more, seek out my mother Austin will instruct you as to where she may be found and tell her that her son died as she would wish him to die, a sincere Christian. I am to be the first victim it would appear. Farewell, my dear boy!
An hour later we slid handsomely up alongside the sloop, which by this time was slipping along at the rate of about five knots under studding-sails and everything else that would hold a breath of wind, and the boats were hoisted in without any interruption to the ship's progress. "Well, Mr Hawkesley, what news from the burning ship?" exclaimed the skipper as I stepped up to him to make my report.
And off went his lordship into another paroxysm of laughter, which sent the tears coursing down his cheeks and caused me to flush most painfully with mortification. "Upon my word, Hawksbill " he commenced. "My name is Hawkesley, my lord, at your service," I interrupted, somewhat angrily I am afraid.
Then, whilst the wretch was in the very midst of his fantastic genuflexions before us, Smellie turned to me with a smile and observed: "Just picture to yourself, Hawkesley, the way in which that fellow would be made to jump if Tom Collins, the boatswain's mate, could only approach him from behind now, and freshen his way with just one touch of his `cat."
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