"And here comes a frigate to speak us," exclaimed Captain Acton, as one of the smaller vessels which had hoisted English colours came out from the crowd with yards braced for the shift of helm and, leaning under her silk-white towers of cloths, and rolling as she came, made directly for the _Aurora_. The schooner was washing slowly along under her three lower gaff sails only, and the frigate that carried everything but studding sails was speedily within ranging and hailing distance. She was the _Amphion_, without much beauty to detain the eye, unless the gaze climbed aloft where every sail was cut and set with the perfection that was the characteristic of the British man-of-war, and where the running and standing rigging was ruled as delicately against the sky as though exquisitely pencilled on paper, and on high, just under the gleaming button of the truck, shimmered the long pennant in fluctuating dyes like a thread of a girl's golden hair floating on the breeze. But her sheathing was rusty and ungainly with marine growths, and her sides wanted the paint-pot, but the run of the hammock cloths was as white as snow, and her row of cannon and the sparkle of uniform buttons and the colour got from the marine sentry posted here or there, heightened the war-like spectacle to the degree of a marine piece charged with the loveliness of finish and precision and imposing and stirring with the spirit of war. She put her helm over, and sailing broadside to broadside with the _Aurora_, hailed her from the throat of a lieutenant who had hoisted his figure by standing on a carronade. "Ho, the schooner ahoy! where are you from?" "Old Harbour Town, England," responded Captain Weaver. "Have you seen anything of the French Fleet?" "No, sir, we have sighted nothing of that sort." This was manifestly all that the frigate had left the other ships to ascertain, and the lieutenant was in the act of springing on to the deck, when Captain Acton shouted: "Pray, sir, can you tell us what those ships are?" "They are the fleet under Lord Nelson," was the answer, "which have been chasing Monsieur de Villeneuve across the Atlantic to the West Indies, and are now bound to Europe, having missed the Frenchmen." "I am Admiral Sir William Lawrence," was next bawled. "Will you be so good as to inform me if Lord Nelson is on board one of those ships, and which ship?" "Yes, sir, he is on board the _Victory_. She is the one that is ahead of and to windward of the ship that has stun-sails set." So saying, and evidently not much impressed by meeting an Admiral of whom he had never heard in a schooner that looked uncommonly like a slaver or a pirate, the lieutenant disappeared, and a moment or two after, the frigate trimmed sail to rejoin the fleet.