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thought Jack in the top, frowning. 'Damn this.' He put a leg over the side, feeling for the futtock shrouds: but someone had seen a familiar purple bag handing up through the cutter's main-hatch, and there was a cry of 'Post'. At this word Jack leant out for the backstay and shot down on deck like a midshipman, forgetting his dignity and laddering his fine white stockings. He stood within a yard of the quartermasters and the mate of the watch as the two bags came jerking across the water. 'Bear a hand, bear a hand there,' he called out; and when at last the bags were inboard he had to make a strong effort to control his impatience while the midshipman passed them solemnly to Mr Randall, and while Mr Randall brought them across the quarterdeck, took off his hat, and said, 'Weasel from the flag, sir, if you please.'
    'Thank you, Mr Randall,' said Jack, carrying them with a fair show of deliberation into his cabin. Here he raped the seals of the post-bag with furious haste, whipped off the cord and riffled through the letters: three covers directed to Captain Aubrey, H.M.S. Lively, in Sophie's round but decided hand, fat letters, triple at the very least. He thrust them into his pocket, and smiling he turned to the little official bag, or satchel, opened the tarred canvas, the oiled-silk inner envelope and then the small cover containing his orders, read them, pursed his lips and read them again. 'Hallows,' he called. 'Pass the word for Mr Randall and the master. Here, letters to the purser for distribution. Ab, Mr Randall, signal Naiad, if you please - permission to part company. Mr Norrey, be so good as to lay me a course for Calvette.'
    For once there was no violent hurry; for once that 'jading impression of haste, of losing not a minute, forsooth' of which Stephen had complained so often, was absent. This was the season of almost uninterrupted northerly winds in the western Mediterranean, of the mistral, the gargoulenc and the tramontane, all standing fair for Minorca and the Lively's rendezvous; but it was important not to arrive off the island too soon, not to stand off and on arousing suspicion; and as Jack's orders, with their general instructions 'to disturb the enemy's shipping, installations and communications' allowed him a great deal of latitude, the frigate was now stretching away across the Gulf of Lyons for the coast of Languedoc, with as much sail as she could bear and her lee rail vanishing from time to time under the racing white water. The morning's gunnery practice - broadside after broadside into the unopposing sea - and now this glorious rushing speed in the brilliant sun had done away with the cross looks and murmurs of discontent of the day before - no stores and no cruise; these damned orders had cheated them of their little cruise at the very moment they had earned it, and they cursed the wretched Weasel for her ill-timed antics, her silly cracking-on, her passion for showing away, so typical of those unrated buggers. 'Was she had come along like a Christian not a Turk, we should have been gone halfway to Elba,' said Java Dick. But this was yesterday, and now brisk exercise, quick forgetfulness, the possibility of something charming over every fresh mile of the opening horizon, and above all the comfortable pervading sense of wealth tomorrow, had restored the Lively's complacency. Hcr captain felt it as he took a last turn on deck before going into his cabin to receive his guests, and he felt it with a certain twinge of emotion, difficult to define: it was not envy, since he was wealthier than any group of them put together, wealthier in posse, he added, with a habitual crossing of his fingers. Yet it was envy, too: they had a ship, they were part of a tightly-knit community. They had a ship and he had not. Yet not exactly envy, not as who should say envy- fine definitions fled down the wind, as the glass turned, the Marine went forward to strike four bells, and the midshipman of the watch heaved the