sail or two, to ease her helm. He saw that the
ponderous machine would stagger under even this short canvass, and that
her captain had made his dispositions for a windy night. The lights that
the Dover and the York carried in their tops were just beginning to be
visible in the gathering gloom, the last about a league and a half down
channel, the ship standing in that direction to get to windward, and the
former, more to the southward, the vessel having already tacked to
follow the admiral. A chain of lights connected the whole of the long
line, and placed the means of communication in the power of the
captains. At this moment, the Plantagenet was full fifty miles at sea,
ploughing through a heavy south-west swell, which the wind was driving
into the chops of the channel, from the direction of the Bay of Biscay,
and the broad Atlantic.

Bluewater buttoned his coat, and he felt his frame invigorated by a gale
that came over his person, loaded by the peculiar flavour of the sea.
But two of the heavy ships remained at their anchors, the Dublin and the
Caesar; and his experienced eye could see that Stowel had every thing on
board the latter ready to trip and be off, as soon as he, himself,
should give the order. At this moment the midshipman, who had been
absent for hours, returned, and stood again at his side.

"Our turn will soon come, sir," said the gallant boy, "and, for one, I
shall not be sorry to be in motion. Those chaps on board the Plantagenet
will swagger like so many Dons, if they should happen to get a broadside
at Monsieur de Vervillin, while we are lying here, under the shore, like
a gentleman's yacht hauled into a bay, that the ladies might eat without
disturbing their stomachs."

"Little fear of that, Geoffrey. The Active is too light of foot,
especially in the weather we have had, to suffer heavy ships to be so
close on her heels. She must have had some fifteen or twenty miles the
start, and the French have been compelled to double Cape la Hogue and
Alderney, before they could even look this way. If coming down channel
at all, they are fully fifty miles to the eastward; and should our van
stretch far enough by morning to head them off, it will bring us
handsomely to windward. Sir Gervaise never set a better trap, than he
has done this very day. The Elizabeth has her hands full, boy, and the
wind seems to be getting scant for her. If it knock her off much more,
it will bring the flood on her weather-bow, a