desire to lap the waters of the fountain and roll in the green
grass of the oasis? Are we not but just from the ocean Sahara?
and is not this Rio a verdant spot, noble Captain? Surely you
will not keep us always tethered at anchor, when a little more
cable would admit of our cropping the herbage! And it is a weary
thing, Captain Claret, to be imprisoned month after month on the
gun-deck, without so much as smelling a citron. Ah! Captain Claret,
what sings sweet Waller:
'But who can always on the billows lie?
The watery wilderness yields no supply.'
compared with such a prisoner, noble Captain,
'Happy, thrice happy, who, in battle slain,
Press'd in Atrides' cause the Trojan pain!'
Pope's version, sir, not the original Greek."

And so saying, Jack once more brought his hat-rim to his mouth,
and slightly bending forward, stood mute.

At this juncture the Most Serene Commodore himself happened to
emerge from the after-gangway, his gilded buttons, epaulets, and
the gold lace on his chapeau glittering in the flooding sunset.
Attracted by the scene between Captain Claret and so well-known
and admired a commoner as Jack Chase he approached, and assuming
for the moment an air of pleasant condescension--never shown to
his noble barons the officers of the ward-room--he said, with a
smile, "Well, Jack, you and your shipmates are after some favour,
I suppose--a day's liberty, is it not?"

Whether it was the horizontal setting sun, streaming along the
deck, that blinded Jack, or whether it was in sun-worshipping