CHAPTER XVI
MAGNIFICENT ARRY GOES ALOFT
Old Ding-Dong lay as the boy had left him.
"Got them round-shot?" hoarsely.
"Yes, sir."
"Stuff em in my tails then."
The boy obeyed.
"Ah, that's better," sighed the old man comfortably. "No fear I shall break adrift o my moorings." He slipped the scent-bottle into his breast-pocket and patted it. "She'll lay snug along o me, she will."
He closed his eyes.
Kit, kneeling at his side, held a pannikin to his lips.
"Water, sir. Will you have a drop?"
"Nay, thank ee, ma lad. I'll bide till t'other side. Shan't be long now."
Kit drank greedily. He could hear the oars of the approaching boat; he had at the most some two minutes of life, but O! the delight of that draught.
A hand grasped his.
"Mr. Caryll," said the old Commander in strange and formal voice, "I've sent for you upon the quarter-deck to thank you for your gallantry in your first action, which is also, I fear, your last…. Can you swim?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, then, slip overboard, if you've a mind, and make shift for yourself."
"No, sir, thank you. I'll stand by the ship."
The old man grunted satisfaction.
"Then say your prayers."
He put the whistle between his teeth.
The flag he had kept flying, nailed to the splintered mizzen, curled languidly above his head.
The old mail, dying in its shadow, eyed it with silent content.
"Are they coomin, Mr. Caryll?"
"Yes, sir—near now."
"Lay low," whispered the old man, "and we'll bag the lot, God helpin us."
The sound of oars ceased. Out of the silence a voice hailed.
"Any one alife on board?"
Old Ding-dong hearkened, his cocked hat far over his eyes.
That look of the Eternal Child, arch and mischievous, played among the wrinkles about his eyes.
"Cuckoo!" he muttered. "Cuckoo!"
Kit giggled.
He knew the ship was about to be blown up; but he didn't take much interest in it himself. It didn't seem to affect him. Somehow he was so far away. All that was happening was happening in a dream-world of which he was a spectator only. True he felt a vague discomfort at the heart; but he knew that in a minute he should wake up—to find mother's eyes smiling into his, and her laughing voice saying,
"My dear boy, what have you been dreaming about?"
The boats were drawing nearer again, wary as hunters drawing on a dying lion.
Old Ding-dong heard them, and smiled.
The little Tremendous was a sheer hulk; her back was broken; her crew were dead—and still they feared her!
The old seaman's heart warmed within him. That one sweet moment paid him generously for fifty years of toil, of battle, of chagrin.
And as though thrilling to the emotion of the man who had loved her for so long, the little ship trembled as she settled deeper.
The old man patted the deck.
"There! it wonna urt you, my dear," he said soothingly. "Too suddint."
A tricorne rose over the bulwark.
An officer cast his eyes up and down the deck, swift and alert as a bird.
"Anybody alife on board?" he repeated, and in the vast silence his voice came small and very shrill.
He clambered over the bulwark, and came up the steep deck monkey-wise.
At the foot of the mizzen he paused.
Kit, crouching in a heap close by, noticed his boots, old, split across the toe, dingy white socks showing through. He found himself wondering whether the man had corns.
Clinging to the stump the Frenchman drew his sword, and looked up at the red-cross flag flapping sullen defiance overhead.
"Dans le nom de l'Empereur!" he cried pompously.
A whistle, swift as the arrow of death, pierced him to the heart.