just from the ocean Sahara? and is not this Rio a
verdant spot, noble Captain? Surely you will not keep us always
tethered at anchor, when a little more cable would admit of our
cropping the herbage! And it is a weary thing, Captain Claret, to be
imprisoned month after month on the gun-deck, without so much as
smelling a citron. Ah! Captain Claret, what sings sweet Waller:

'But who can always on the billows lie?
The watery wilderness yields no supply.'

compared with such a prisoner, noble Captain,

'Happy, thrice happy, who, in battle slain,
Press'd in Atrides' cause the Trojan pain!'

Pope's version, sir, not the original Greek."

And so saying, Jack once more brought his hat-rim to his mouth, and
slightly bending forward, stood mute.

At this juncture the Most Serene Commodore himself happened to emerge
from the after-gangway, his gilded buttons, epaulets, and the gold lace
on his chapeau glittering in the flooding sunset. Attracted by the
scene between Captain Claret and so well-known and admired a commoner
as Jack Chase he approached, and assuming for the moment an air of
pleasant condescension--never shown to his noble barons the officers of
the ward-room--he said, with a smile, "Well, Jack, you and your
shipmates are after some favour, I suppose--a day's liberty, is it not?"

Whether it was the horizontal setting sun, streaming along the deck,
that blinded Jack, or whether it was in sun-worshipping homage of the
mighty Commodore, there is no telling; but just at this juncture noble
Jack was standing reverentially holding his hat to his brow, like a man
with weak eyes.

"Valiant Commodore," said he, at last, "this audience is indeed an
honour undeserved. I almost sink beneath it. Yes, valiant Commodore,
your sagacious mind has truly divined our object. Liberty, sir; liberty
is, indeed, our humble prayer. I trust your honourable wound, received
in glorious battle, valiant Comodore, pains you less today than common."

"Ah! cunning Jack!" cried the Commodore, by no means blind to the bold
sortie of his flattery, but not at all displeased with it. In more
respects than one, our Commodore's wound was his weak side.

"I think we must give them liberty," he added, turning to Captain
Claret; who thereupon, waving Jack further off, fell into confidential
discourse with his superior.

"Well, Jack, we will see about it," at last cried the Commodore,
advancing. "I think we must let you go.