I had expected this; and, instead of contesting the matter, I bowed, and walked off the quarter-deck, as if about to comply.  “Out of sight, out of mind,” I thought;—­it would be time enough to go below, when I had seen the beginning of the affair!  In the waist I passed the marines, drawn up in military array, with their officer as attentive to dressing them in line as if the victory depended on its accuracy.  On the forecastle I found Neb, with his hands in his pockets, watching the manoeuvres of the French as the cat watches those of the mouse.  The fellow’s eye was alive with interest; and I saw it was useless to think of sending him below.  As for the officers, they had taken their cue from the captain, and only smiled good-naturedly as I passed them.  The first-lieutenant, however, was an exception.  He never had appeared well-disposed towards us, and, I make no doubt, had I not been so hospitably taken into the cabin, we should all have got an earlier taste of his humour.

“There is too much good stuff in that fellow,” he drily remarked, in passing, pointing towards Neb at the same time, “for him to be doing nothing, at a moment like this.”

“We are neutrals, as respects France, Mr. Clements,” I answered, “and it would not be right for us to take part in your quarrels.  I will not hesitate to say, however, that I have received so much kindness on board the Briton, that I should feel miserable in not being permitted to share your danger.  Something may turn up, that will enable me to be of assistance—­ay, and Neb, too.”

The man gave me a keen look, muttered something between his teeth, and walked aft, whither he was proceeding when we met.  I looked in the direction in which he went, and could see he was speaking in a surly way to Captain Rowley.  The old gentleman cast a look forward, shook a finger at me, then smiled in his benevolent way, and turned, as I thought, to look for one of the midshipmen who acted as his aids.  At that moment, the Frenchman went in stays, delivering his whole broadside, from aft forward, as the guns bore.  The shot told on the British spars smartly, though only two hulled her.  As a matter of course, this turned the thoughts of Captain Rowley to the main business in hand, and I was forgotten.  As for Neb, he immediately made himself useful.  A shot cut the main-spring-stay, just above his head; and before I had time to speak, the fellow seized a stopper, and caught one of the ends of the stay, applied the stopper, and was hard at work in bringing the rope into its proper place, and in preparing it again to bear a strain.  The boatswain applauded his activity, sending two or three forecastle-men to help him.  From that moment, Neb was as busy as a bee aloft, now appearing through openings in the smoke, on this yard-arm, now on that, his face on a broad grin, whenever business of more importance than common was to be done.  The Briton might have had older and more experienced seamen at work in her rigging, that day, but not one that was more active, more ready when told what to do, or more athletic.  The gaite de coeur with which this black exerted himself in the midst of that scene of strife, clamour and bloodshed, has always presented itself to my mind as truly wonderful.