"We mean to," said Cary. "This very afternoon. You shall take us back with you."
The Commander opened his eyes at this cool proposal, but we prevailed upon him to seek the permission of the Admiral-Superintendent, who, a good deal to my surprise, proved to be quite pliable. Cary's reputation for discretion must be very high in the little village where he lives if it is able to guarantee so disreputable a scribbler as Bennet Copplestone! The Admiral, fortunately, had not read any of my Works before they had been censored. When printed in _Cornhill_ they were comparatively harmless.
I must not describe the _Malplaquet_. Her design was not new to me--I had seen more than one of her type--but as she is now a unit in Beatty's Fleet her existence is not admitted to the world. As we went up and down her many steep narrow ladders, and peered into dark corners, I looked everywhere for a Marine sentry whom I could identify by mark of ear as Dawson. I never saw him, but Trehayne passed me twice, and I found myself again admiring his splendid young manhood. He was not big, being rather slim and wiry than strongly built, but in sheer beauty of face and form he was almost perfectly fashioned. "Do you know that man?" I asked of our commander, indicating Trehayne. "No," said he. "He is one of the shore party. But I should like to have him with me. He is one of the smartest looking petty officers that I have ever seen."
We were shown everything that we desired to see except the transmission room and the upper conning tower--the twin holy of holies in a commissioned ship--and slipped away, escaping the Captain by a bare two minutes. Which was lucky, as he would probably have had us thrown into the "ditch."
The end of the day was as weariful as the beginning, and we were all glad--especially, I expect, Mrs. Cary--to go early to bed. That ill-used lady, to whom we could disclose nothing of our anxieties, must have found us wretched company.
We had finished breakfast the next morning--the Saturday of Dawson's gamble--and were sitting on Cary's big fireguard talking of every subject, except the one which had kept us awake at night, when a servant entered and announced that a soldier was at the door with a message from Mr. Dawson. "Show him in," almost shouted Cary, and I jumped to my feet, stirred for once into a visible display of eagerness.