Firing had long ceased.
Kit, squatting, his back against the mizzen-stump, was coming to with splitting head.
All through that golden summer afternoon the sloop had drifted shoreward, privateer and frigate hammering her from either side. Towards evening, her last shot spent, the frigate boarded. The Gunner, hoarse as a crow, bloody as a beefsteak, had brought up the weary remnant of the crew to repel the attack, Kit aiding him manfully.
Men had been dancing idiotically about the boy; he had heard the
Gunner's raucous voice close in his ear,
"Gad, you're a game un!" and had run at a nightmare man with goggle eyes.
Then something had happened.
Now all was calm and sunset peace, and dew on the deck among the blood stains.
And how beautiful it was, this strange twilight quiet, after the howl and torment of battle!
Warily the boy opened eyes and ears. He was not dead then, not even wounded, only horribly parched, and how his head ached!
Before him the cliff fell sheer and blank—a white curtain dropped from heaven.