She answered quietly: “I’d have—given it. I’m sorry that you took it so.”
“Then give it,” the Captain bade her.
And she bent and kissed him on the forehead, her hand upon his hair. And the heart in his bosom leaped at the caress.
“Was not that a fight worth seeing, Ruth?” he cried. “Worth winning?”
“It was terrible,” she told him. “Oh, even though he is your son, I’m afraid for you. There was death in his eyes, Cap’n Pawl.”
At that the Captain laughed again, and stumbling to his feet, stood swaying above them. “Fiddle!” he said. “He’s fanciful. But he’s not a man to fear, not Red Pawl.”
The girl looked at the missionary, and saw her own fear mirrored in his eyes, and something of sorrow as well. But she said no more.
CHAPTER VII
AFTER the fight with his son, a change came over Cap’n Pawl, a change which made the missionary uneasy.
Black Pawl said to him next day: “Well, Father, you were a true prophet. The thing came about as you said. But you see, it is finished, with no harm done after all.”