Fitting his own heels to the dents, he stood with crouching knees, making play with Polly among the ghosts of the smugglers.
He saw it all: the swarming satyrs, the closing door, the white-faced rifleman at the crack, and the Gentleman, back to the door, face to the Downs, his blade leaping out to scorch intruders within the pale.
"O Polly!" he cried. "We three—we three could have held the door against ten thousand."
The tears flowed down his face. The thought of this young man spending himself for a legless sailor, and a wounded rifleman, his enemies, who half-an-hour before had stood between him and his life's success, touched him to the quick.
"What a man!" he cried.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
PIPER PRAYS
I
He turned back into the kitchen.
Knapp was continuing his tale.