A score of rockets followed the broadside. Captain Blaise glanced
astern, then ahead, aloft, and from there to the swinging hull beneath
him. He started to hum a tune, but broke it off, to recite:
"O the woe of wily Hassan
When they break the tragic news!"
And from that he turned to Miss Cunningham with a joyous, "And what d'y'
think of it all?"
She looked her answer, with her head held high and breathing deeply.
"And the _Dancing Bess_, isn't she a little jewel of a ship? Something
to love? Aye, she is. And you had no fear?"
"Fear!" Her laughter rang out. "When father went below, he said, 'Fear
nothing. If Captain Blaise gets caught, there's no help for it--it's
fate.'"
And I knew he was satisfied. She had seen him on the quarter of his own
ship and he playing the game at which, the _Bess_ under his _feet_, no
living man could beat him; and in playing it he had brought her father
and herself to freedom. It was for such moments he lived.
The night was fading. We could now see things close by. He took her hand
and patted it. "Go below, child, and sleep in peace. You're headed for
home. Look at her slipping through the white-topped seas, and when she
lays down to her work--there's nothing ever saw the African coast can
overhaul us. No, nothing that ever leaped the belted trades can hold her
now, not the _Bess_--while her gear's sound and she's all the wind she
craves for.
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