"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.