Chapter 6

----"The letter! ay! the letter!
'Tis there a woman loves to speak her wishes;
It spares the blushes of the love-sick maiden.
And every word's a smile, each line a tongue."
_Duo._

The slumbers of Griffith continued till late on the following morning,
when he was awakened by the report of a cannon, issuing from the deck
above him. He threw himself, listlessly, from his cot, and perceiving
the officer of marines near him, as his servant opened the door of his
stateroom, he inquired, with some little interest in his manner, if "the
ship was in chase of anything, that a gun was fired?"

"'Tis no more than a hint to the Ariel," the soldier replied, "that
there is bunting abroad for them to read. It seems as if all hands were
asleep on board her, for we have shown her signal, these ten minutes,
and she takes us for a collier, I believe, by the respect she pays it."

"Say, rather, that she takes us for an enemy, and is wary," returned
Griffith. "Brown Dick has played the English so many tricks himself,
that he is tender of his faith."

"Why, they have shown him a yellow flag over a blue one, with a cornet,
and that spells Ariel, in every signal-book we have; surely he can't
suspect the English of knowing how to read Yankee."

"I have known Yankees read more difficult English," said Griffith,
smiling; "but, in truth, I suppose that Barnstable has been, like
myself, keeping a dead reckoning of his time, and his men have profited
by the occasion. She is lying to, I trust."

"Ay! like a cork in a mill-pond, and I dare say you are right. Give
Barnstable plenty of sea-room, a heavy wind, and but little sail, and he
will send his men below, put that fellow he calls long Tom at the
tiller, and follow himself, and sleep as quietly as I ever could at
church."

"Ah! yours is a somniferous orthodoxy, Captain Manual," said the young
sailor, laughing, while he slipped his arms into the sleeves of a
morning round-about, covered with the gilded trappings of his
profession; "sleep appears to come most naturally to all you idlers. But
give me a passage, and I will go up, and call the schooner down to us in
the turning of an hour-glass."

The indolent soldier raised himself from the leaning posture he had
taken against the door of the stateroom, and Griffith proceeded through
the dark wardroom, up the narrow stairs that led him to the principal
battery of the ship, and thence, by another and broader flight of steps
to the open deck.

The gale still blew strong, but steadily; the blue water of the ocean
was rising in mimic mountains, that were crowned with white foam,