Chapter 31

"Now; the business!"

Othello.

Three hours later, and every noise was hushed on board the royal cruiser.
The toil of repairing damages had ceased, and most of the living, with the
dead, lay alike in common silence. The watchfulness necessary to the
situation of the fatigued mariners, however, was not forgotten, and though
so many slept, a few eyes were still open, and affecting to be alert. Here
and there, some drowsy seaman paced the deck, or a solitary young officer
endeavored to keep himself awake, by humming a low air, in his narrow
bounds. The mass of the crew slept heavily, with pistols in their belts
and cutlasses at their sides, between the guns. There was one
figure-extended upon the quarter-deck, with the head resting on a
shot-box. The deep breathing of this person denoted the unquiet slumbers
of a powerful frame, in which weariness contended with suffering. It was
the wounded and feverish master, who had placed himself in that position
to catch an hour of the repose that was necessary to his situation. Oh an
arm-chest, which had been emptied of its contents, lay another but a
motionless human form, with the limbs composed in decent order, and with
the face turned towards the melancholy stars. This was the body of the
young Dumont, which had been kept, with the intention of consigning it to
consecrated earth, when the ship should return to port. Ludlow, with the
delicacy of a generous and chivalrous enemy had with his own hands spread
the stainless ensign of his country over the remains of the inexperienced
but gallant young Frenchman.

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 Barbérie 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