CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE STORM AND THE FIGHT.-THE ADMIRAL’S REPUDIATION OF HIS PRINCIPAL.
“Well,” said the admiral, when they were fairly under the tree, upon the leaves of which the pattering rain might be heard falling: “well—what is it?”
“If your young friend, Mr. Bannerworth, should chance to send a pistol-bullet through any portion of my anatomy, prejudicial to the prolongation of my existence, you will be so good as not to interfere with anything I may have about me, or to make any disturbance whatever.”
“You may depend I sha’n’t.”
“Just take the matter perfectly easy—as a thing of course.”
“Oh! I mean d——d easy.”
“Ha! what a delightful thing is friendship! There is a little knoll or mound of earth midway between here and the Hall. Do you happen to know it? There is one solitary tre
