That is what I call Vattel, my dear young lady."
"If he do this, he will indeed prove himself a generous adversary," said
Eve, "and we shall be certain to speak well of his humanity, whatever we
may think of his obstinacy."
"Are you quite sure the ship in sight is the corvette?" asked Paul Blunt.
"Who else can it be?--Two vessels are quite sufficient to be jammed down
here on the coast of Africa, and we know that the Englishman must be
somewhere to leeward of us; though, I will confess, I had believed him much
farther, if not plump up among the Mohammedans, beginning to reduce to a
feather-weight, like Captain Riley, who came out with just his skin and
bones, after a journey across the desert."
"I do not think those top-gallant-sails have the symmetry of the canvas of
a ship-of-war."
Captain Truck looked steadily at the young man an instant, as one regards
a sound criticism, and then he turned his eye towards the object of which
they were speaking.
"You are right, sir," he rejoined, after a moment of examination; "and I
have had a lesson in my own trade from one young enough to be my son. The
stranger is clearly no cruiser, and as there is no port in-shore of us
anywhere near this latitude, he is probably some trader who has been
driven down here, like ourselves.
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