Then with a gasp of thankfulness he remembered.
It was the Kite, of course.
The tide had set her alongside; and now she lay scraping the side of the privateer. A handier stepping-stone he could not have asked.
CHAPTER XLI
PIGGY, THE PRIVATEERSMAN
I
In a minute he had clambered aboard the lugger.
The privateer had dropped a hawser over her side as buffer. The boy was up it in a moment, and on to the deck, his heart beating high.
The deck was empty.
No! a figure was leaning over the side, his back to Kit. No sailor, obviously. He was wearing a great bearskin, and Kit caught the glimmer of a bayonet. A sentinel, and not asleep, nor drunk; for he was humming Ça Ira.