The Grip of Honor: A Story of Paul Jones and the American Revolution
will you vouchsafe me your name and some of your story, that I may know with whom I have to do?"

"My name is Howard, sir,--Elizabeth Howard," replied the girl, brightening as her fears diminished. "I am the ward of Admiral Lord Westbrooke, the governor of Scarborough Castle. I have no father nor mother."

"Another claim upon our consideration, ma'am."

"Sir, I thank you. I was going to visit friends in Liverpool when that unfortunate ship there was wrecked. Oh, what will become of me now?" she exclaimed, her eyes filling with tears again.

"Liverpool lies in our way, Mistress Howard, and 'twill give me great pleasure to land you upon some convenient point on the coast in a few days if the wind hold, and no mischance arise; and now may I present my officers to you, since we are to be fellow-passengers all."

Upon receiving the desired permission from the grateful girl, in whose pale cheek the color began to come again, the captain, who was a great stickler for etiquette, brought forward the little group of officers and introduced them one by one. There was much bowing and courtesying on the quarter-deck, which even the seamen seemed to enjoy.

"This is all, I believe," said the captain, having stopped with the smallest midshipman, who announced himself in his boyish treble, in comical imitation of his elders, as, "vastly honored, madam."

"The gentleman who brought me here?" questioned the girl, blushing faintly; "I trust he is not seriously injured?"

"Ah!" replied Jones, "my first lieutenant, Mr. Barry O'Neill, a volunteer with us, and an officer in the service of his most Christian Majesty, my friend, the King of France." On the ship O'Neill had elected to sink his marquisate.

"He is not much hurt, Mistress Howard, only battered about a bit and pulled down by the nervous shock and efforts he underwent--why, here he is now! Did I not warn you, sir, to stay below?" said the doctor, shaking his finger, as O'Neill, pale and languid, with his head bound up, came slowly up the companion-way.

"Oh, I am all right, doctor," said the lieutenant, rather weakly, but smiling with the audacity and gallantry of his race as he spied the girl. "Who would stay below with divinity on the deck? The thought of the presence of this lady above him would lift a crusader from his tombstone."

"Allow me to 
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