helm a-lee, while speaking, and by the time the
order he had given was uttered, the quick-working boat was about, and
nearly filled on the other tack. In another minute, she was again brushing
along the side of the sloop-of-war. A common complaint against this hardy
interference with the regular duty of the boat, was about to break out of
the lips of the Alderman and the schipper, when he of the India-shawl
lifted his cap, and addressed the officer in the rigging, with all the
self-possession he had manifested in the intercourse with those nearer his
person.

"Has Her Majesty need of a man in her service who has seen, in his time,
more blue water than hard ground; or is there no empty berth in so gallant
a cruiser, for one who must do a seaman's duty, or starve?"

The descendant of the king-hating Ludlows, as the Lord Cornbury had styled
the race of the commander of the Coquette, was quite as much surprised by
the appearance of him who put this question, as he was by the coolness
with which a mariner of ordinary condition presumed to address an officer
who bore so high a commission as his own. He had, how ever, sufficient
time to recollect in whose presence he stood, ere he replied, for the
stranger had again placed the helm a-lee, and caused the foresail to be
thrown aback;--a change that made the periagua stationary.

"The Queen will always receive a bold mariner in her pay, if he come
prepared to serve with skill and fidelity," he said; "as a proof of which,
let a rope be thrown the periagua; we shall treat more at our ease under
Her Majesty's pennant. I shall be proud to entertain Alderman Van
Beverout, in the mean time: and a cutter will always be at his command,
when he shall have occasion to quit us."

"Your land-loving Aldermen find their way from a Queen's cruiser to the
shore, more easily than a seaman of twenty years' experience;" returned
the other, without giving the burgher time to express his thanks for the
polite offer of the other. "You have gone through the Gibraltar passage,
without doubt, noble captain, being a gentleman that has got so fine a
boat under his orders?"

"Duty has taken me into the Italian seas, more than once," answered
Ludlow, half disposed to resent this familiarity, though too anxious to
keep the periagua near, to quarrel with him who so evidently had produced
the unexpected pleasure.

"Then you know that, though a lady might fan a ship through the straits
eastward, it need