Читать книгу Hornblower and the Hotspur онлайн

63 страница из 112

'Instructions for Horatio Hornblower, Esq., Master and Commander, H.M. Sloop Hotspur. To be opened on passing the Sixth Degree of Longitude West of Greenwich.'

Sealed orders. Hornblower had heard about such things all his professional life, but this was his first contact with them. They had been sent on board the Hotspur on the afternoon of his wedding day, and he had signed for them. Now the ship was about to cross the sixth meridian; she had come down-Channel with remarkable ease; there had been only one single watch when she had not been able to make good her direct course. Putting her about in order to restore Cargill's self-confidence had been extraordinarily fortunate. The wind had hardly backed westerly at all, and only momentarily even then. Hotspur had escaped being embayed in Lyme Bay; she had neatly weathered the Casquets, and it all stemmed from that fortunate order. Hornblower was aware that Prowse was feeling a new respect for him as a navigator and a weather prophet. That was all to the good, and Hornblower had no intention of allowing Prowse to guess that the excellent passage was the result of a fortunate fluke, of a coincidence of circumstances.