The old man was leaning against the wheel. His brow was puckered; and there was a tense, breathless air about his face. It came to the boy with a shock of surprise that a man hard-hit makes just the same sort of face as a man who has got one on the funny bone at cricket.
"Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously.
"Nay, I'm none hurt, but I am hit. They've took fifty years doin it, but they've done it at last. It was yon chap with the bashed skull. Haul him alongside o me, wilta? I'll set on him—ease my old stumps!"
He lowered himself.
"I'll larn him shoot me," he said, arranging himself comfortably on his corpse.
Kit giggled. Somehow this old man with the twinkle in his eye made him feel at home among these screaming horrors.
"Lucky shot o Lanyon's," continued old Ding-dong. "There's a lot o luck in fightin; and good job for us too. Luck's the favour o God. He always favours us. We're straight, ye see."
He peered through the eddying smoke-drift.
"That there top-hamper o their'n makes a tidy bridge atween ships. Now if they was to tumble to that, reckon they'd boord—and we'd be about done."
Kit looked round.