51�Թ�

"Why, the place is as silent as a grave-yard," muttered the old cockswain of the cutter.

But when the marquis became incapable of taking command and directing and inspiring his people his own inaction extended to the rest of the house, and the dowager of Pont Brillant, interested only in the suffering of her grandson, gave herself no further concern about the disaster, and roundly rebuked the cockswain of the bark for not having opposed the foolish temerity of Raoul.

On the benches, six oarsmen, wearing chamois skin jackets and crimson caps, were rowing vigorously; the cockswain seated at the back, where he controlled the canoe, seemed to follow the orders of a young man, who, erect upon one of the benches, with one hand in the pocket of his mackintosh of a whitish colour, indicated with the index finger of the other hand a point which could be nothing else than the submerged farmhouse, as, in that part of the valley, no other building could be seen.

Coxswain, Cockswain, kok′swān, or kok′sn, n. a seaman who steers a boat, and under the superior officer takes charge of it.

Every time that he was assigned to boat duty in the many skirmishes and little actions, before the harbor of Tripoli, Reuben succeeded in going in Decatur's boat, and one day to his delight he was promoted to be cockswain, which must have proved that Decatur's keen eye had noticed him.