There was one little group on the raised deck in the stern of the vessel, in which the ordinary interests of life still seemed to exercise their influence.  Hither Ludlow had led Alida and her companions, after the duties of the day were over, in order that they might breathe an air fresher than that of the interior of the vessel.  The negress nodded near her young mistress; the tired Alderman sate with his back supported against the mizen-mast, giving audible evidence of his situation; and Ludlow stood erect, occasionally throwing an earnest look on the surrounding and unruffled waters, and then lending his attention to the discourse of his companions.  Alida and Seadrift were seated near each other, on chairs.  The conversation was low, while the melancholy and the tremor in the voice of la belle Barberie denoted how much the events of the day had shaken her usually firm and spirited mind.

“There is a mingling of the terrific and the beautiful, of the grand and the seducing, in this unquiet profession of yours!” observed, or rather continued Alida, replying to a previous remark of the young sailor.  “That tranquil sea—­the hollow sound of the surf on the shore—­and this soft canopy above us form objects on which even a girl might dwell in admiration, were not her ears still ringing with the roar and cries of the combat.  Did you say the commander of the Frenchman was but a youth?”

“A mere boy in appearance, and one who doubtless owed his rank to the advantages of birth and family.  We know it to be the captain, by his dress, no less than by the desperate effort he made to recover the false step taken in the earlier part of the action.”

“Perhaps he has a mother, Ludlow!—­a sister—­a wife—­or——­”

Alida paused, for, with maiden diffidence, she hesitated to pronounce the tie which was uppermost in her thoughts.

“He may have had one, or all!  Such are the sailor’s hazards, and——­”

“Such the hazards of those who feel an interest in their safety!” uttered the low but expressive voice of Seadrift.

A deep and eloquent silence succeeded.  Then the voice of Myndert was heard muttering indistinctly, “twenty of beaver, and three of marten—­as per invoice.”  The smile which, spite of the train of his thoughts, rose on the lips of Ludlow, had scarcely passed away, when the hoarse tones of Trysail, rendered still hoarser by his sleep, were plainly heard in a stifled cry, saying, “Bear a hand, there, with your stoppers!—­the Frenchman is coming round upon us, again.”

“That is prophetic!” said one, aloud, behind the listening group.  Ludlow turned, quick as the flag fluttering on its vane, and through the darkness he recognized, in the motionless but manly form that stood near him on the poop, the fine person of the ‘Skimmer of the Seas.’

“Call away——!”

“Call none!”—­interrupted Tiller, stopping the hurried order which involuntarily broke from the lips of Ludlow.  “Let thy ship feign the silence of a wreck, but, in truth, let there be watchfulness and preparation even to her store-rooms!  You have done well, Captain Ludlow, to be on the alert, though I have known sharper eyes than those of some of your look-outs.”