"He shall not lose him through me," said Captain Acton, speaking with the solemnity with which he might utter a sentence in a sacred building. "Sir William shall never be made to suffer at my hands. I will not lift a finger to prosecute Mr Lawrence, who, if he ever returns to Old Harbour Town, will be safe from all but his creditors." She slightly coloured as though surprised into an emotion of happiness, and again kissing her father went into her berth, and Captain Acton returned to the Admiral slowly and thoughtfully. It was early next morning, about six bells--seven o'clock--when an event of the deepest historic interest to those who took part in it, broke the routine of the chase of the _Minorca_ by the _Aurora_. The wind was a little to the north of west, and blew a gentle breeze which rippled the waters upon the long-drawn swell that came heaving from horizon to horizon, from north-west to south-east, as though a gale of wind had been lately blowing or was to come. Though freckled with high fine-weather clouds the dome of heaven sank in purity to its girdle of sea line, and from the deck at daybreak nothing was in sight. But soon as the east changed from darkness into a pale luminous grey, with the stars fading above the soaring haze of light as though they fled in scatterings, a sailor trotted up the forerigging of the _Aurora_, and shinned as high as the topgallant yard over which he flung a leg with his back against the mast, and taking the telescope that was slung upon his back in his hands, he slowly and steadily directed the lenses round the girdle of brine which was now faintly stealing into a visible horizon in the west, and his silence betokened to Captain Weaver, who stood on the quarterdeck with eyes fixed upon the fellow up aloft, that nothing was in sight.