In the Kings Name | Page 3

dash at it just as the slight cord was running over the side.
Billy Waters made a dash at it just at the same moment, and there was a dull thud as the two men's heads came in contact, and they fell back into a sitting position on the deck, while the mackerel darted frightened away to puzzle the whole shoal of its fellows with the novel appendage hanging to its snout.
"Avast there, you lubber!" exclaimed Billy Waters angrily. "Stand by, my lad, stand by," replied the other, making a dart back at the helm just as the cutter was beginning to fall off.
"Look ye here, messmet, air you agoin' to make my head shipshape, or air you not?" growled Tom Tully; and then, before his hairdresser could finish tying the last knot, the lieutenant came on deck.
For when Hilary Leigh ran below, it was to seize a long spyglass out of the slings in the cabin bulkhead, and to give his commanding officer a tremendous shake.
"Sail on the larboard bow, Mr Lipscombe, sir. I say, do wake up, sir; I think it is something this time."
The officer in question, who was a hollow-cheeked man of about forty, very sallow-looking, and far from prepossessing in his features, opened his eye, but he did not attempt to rise from the bunker upon which he was stretched.
"Leigh," he said, turning his eye round towards the little oval thick glass window nearest to him, "You're a most painstaking young officer, but you are always mare's-nesting. What is it now?"
"One of those three-masted luggers, sir--a Frenchman--a chasse maree, laden deeply, and running for Shoreham."
"Let her run," said the lieutenant, closing his eye again; the other was permanently closed, having been poked out in boarding a Frenchman some years before, and with the extinction of that optic went the prospect of the lieutenant's being made a post-captain, and he was put in command of the Kestrel when he grew well.
"But it is something this time, sir, I'm sure."
"Leigh," said the lieutenant, yawning, "I was just in a delicious dream, and thoroughly enjoying myself when you come down and bother me about some confounded fishing-boat. There, be off. No: I'll come this time."
He yawned, and showed a set of very yellow teeth; and then, as if by an effort, leaped up and preceded the young officer on deck.
"Let's have a look at her, Leigh," he said, after a glance at a long, low, red-sailed lugger, about a couple of miles ahead, sailing fast in the light breeze.
He took the spyglass, and, going forward, looked long and steadily at the lugger before saying a word.
"Well, sir?"
"French lugger, certainly, Leigh," he said, quietly; "fresh from the fishing-ground I should say. They wouldn't attempt to run a cargo now."
"But you'll overhaul her, sir, won't you?"
"It's not worth while, Leigh, but as you have roused me up, it will be something to do. Here, call the lads up. Where's Waters? Waters!"
"Ay, ay, sir," replied that worthy in a voice of thunder, though he was close at hand.
"Load the long gun, and be ready to fire."
"Ay, ay, sir."
There was no beating to quarters, for the little crew were on deck, and every man fell naturally into his place as the lieutenant seemed now to wake up to his work, and glanced at the sails, which were all set, and giving his orders sharply and well, a pull was taken at a sheet here and a pull there, the helm altered, and in spite of the lightness of the breeze the Kestrel began to work along with an increase of speed of quite two knots an hour.
"Now then, Leigh, shall we ever have her, or shall we have to throw a shot across her bows to bring her to?"
"Let them have a shot, sir," cried the young officer, whose cheeks were beginning to flush with excitement, as he watched the quarry of which the little falcon was in chase.
"And waste the king's powder and ball, eh? No, Leigh, there will be no need. But we may as well put on our swords."
Meanwhile, Billy Waters was busy unlashing the tail of Long Tom, as he called the iron gun forward, and with a pat of affection he opened the ammunition chest, and got out the flannel bag of powder and smiled at a messmate, rammer in hand.
"Let's give him his breakfast, or else he won't bark," he said, with a grin; and the charge was rammed home, the ball sent after it with a big wad to keep it in its place, and the men waited eagerly for the order to fire.
Billy Waters knew that that would not come for some time, so he sidled up to Hilary, and whispered as the young man was buckling on his sword, the lieutenant having gone below