"
"With all my heart," cried Captain Truck: "if you will give me room, I
will back my main-topsail, but I wish to lay my head off shore. This
gentleman understands Vattel, and we shall have no trouble with him. Keep
the anchor clear Mr. Leach, for 'fair words butter no parsnips.' Still,
he is a gentleman;--and, Saunders, put a bottle of the old Madeira on the
cabin table."
Captain Ducie now left the rigging in which he had stood, and the corvette
luffed off to the eastward, to give room to the packet, where she hove-to
with her fore-topsail aback. The Montauk followed, taking a position under
her lee. A quarter-boat was lowered, and in five minutes its oars were
tossed at the packet's lee-gangway, when the commander of the corvette
ascended the ship's side, followed by a middle-aged man in the dress of a
civilian, and a chubby-faced midshipman.
No one could mistake Captain Ducie for anything but a gentleman. He was
handsome, well-formed, and about five-and-twenty. The bow he made to Eve,
with whose beauty and air he seemed instantly struck, would have become a
drawing-room; but he was too much of an officer to permit any further
attention to escape him until he had paid his respects to, and received
the compliments of, Captain Truck. He then turned to the ladies and Mr.
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