There was not the ghost of a smile on his face, no curl of contempt about his mouth.
Kit thanked him inwardly. After all the rough old fellow was a gentleman.
"Trying the distance with a bow-chaser," said the old man imperturbably.
"I'd have a lick back, only I can't spare no men for the deck carronades.
All below with Lanyon."
The tip of his tongue shot out, and made the journey of his lips, cat-like. From behind that grim and weathered visage peeped the child, arch, mischievous, infinitely cunning.
"Master Mouche, he reckons I'm going to cross his bows and rake him," he whispered. "He reckons I'll keep my course to sarve his consort the same. He reckons to come up under my starn and rake me fore and aft, while his consort wears ship and pounds me with her broadside. That's his little game. 'Tain't mine though, ye know, Mr. Caryll—'tain't mine." He rolled a blue eye on the boy; and in that eye, twinkling cunning, bubbled the delight of a child about to play a practical joke on an elder.
So unexpected was the effect, and so tickling—this grim old veteran revealing in himself the Eternal Child who hides behind us all—that the Frenchmen at their guns, hearing in the silence the sudden ripple of a boy's laughter, whispered among themselves that the Englishman had a woman aboard.
III
The breeze was very light and fast falling away. Old Ding-dong kept one eye on his topsails, and one on his foe, sliding towards him across the water.
"Like the Shadow o Death a'most, ain't she?" said the old man in hushed voice—"so still-like and stealy." He dropped a kind eye on the boy's face. "Makes ye think first time, don't it?—I mind Quiberon. Guts feel fainty like."
He renewed his watch. The twinkle had left his eyes. He had withdrawn deep down into himself. Somewhere in the centre of that square body sat his mind, alert, cat-like, about to pounce.