Jem Prater brought word that
he was wounded. I hope it is not serious."
"No, sir; not much to speak of. He has only lost three fingers. That was
why I wrote this letter--or report, I ought to call it, if anybody else
had written it. Oh, sir! I cannot bear to think of it! I was fifth luff
when the fight began, and now there is only one left above me, and he is
in command of our biggest prize, the Ville d'Anvers. But, Admiral, here
you will find it all, as I wrote it, from the lips, when they tied up
the fingers, of Captain Honyman."
"How could you tie them up when they were gone?" Captain Stubbard
enquired, with a sneer at such a youth. He had got on very slowly in his
early days, and could not bear to see a young man with such vacancies
before him. "Why, you are the luckiest lad I ever saw! Sure to go up at
least three steps. How well you must have kept out of it! And how happy
you must feel, Lieutenant Scudamore!"
"I am not at all happy at losing dear friends," the young man answered,
gently, as he turned away and patted the breech of a gun, upon which
there was a little rust next day; "that feeling comes later in life, I
suppose."
The Admiral was not attending to them now, but absorbed in the
brief account of the conflict, begun by Captain Honyman in his own
handwriting, and finished by his voice, but not his pen. Any one
desirous to read this may do so in the proper place. For the present
purpose it is enough to say that the modesty of the language was
scarcely surpassed by the brilliancy of the exploit.
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