Her mistress gently laid the head of the prostrate officer against one of the thwarts, and, leaving the handkerchief as a rest for it, followed the maid. Then the old coxswain secured the lieutenant to the chair, and when he had reached the deck, where he opened his eyes and recovered consciousness with incredible promptness, the boat was dropped astern, the falls hooked on, and she was smartly run up to her place at the davits, and the Ranger filled away. O'Neill was at once assisted below to his cabin, and his wounds, which were not serious, were attended to by the surgeon.
When the young woman joined her maid on the deck, her glance comprehended a curious picture. In front of her, hat in hand, bowing low before her, stood a small, dapper, swarthy, black-avised, black-haired man, in the blue uniform of a naval officer. He had the face of a scholar and a student, with the bold, brilliant, black eyes of a fighter. Surrounding him were other officers and several young boys similarly dressed. Scattered about in various parts of the ship, as their occupation or station permitted, were a number of rude, fierce, desperate-looking men, nondescript in apparel. None of the navies of the world at that date, except in rare instances, uniformed its men. On either side of the deck black guns protruded through the ports, and here and there a marine, carrying a musket and equipped in uniform of white and green, stood or paced a solitary watch.
"I bid you welcome to my ship, madam; so fair a face on a war-vessel is as grateful a sight as the sun after a squall," said the officer, elaborately bowing.
"Sir," said the young woman, trembling slightly, "I am a person of some consideration at home. My guardian will cheerfully pay you any ransom if you spare me. I am a woman and alone. I beg you, sir, to use me kindly;" she clasped her hands in beseeching entreaty, her beautiful eyes filling with tears.
At this signal the fears of the maid broke out afresh, and she plumped down on her knees and grasped the captain around the legs, bawling vociferously, and adding a touch of comedy to the scene.
"Oh, sir, for the love of Heaven, sir, don't make us walk the plank!" It would seem that the maid had been reading romances.
The seamen near enough to hear and see grinned largely at this exhibition, and the captain, with a deep flush and a black frown on his face, struggled to release himself.
"Silence, woman!" he cried fiercely, at last. "Get up from your knees, or, by Heaven, I will have you thrown overboard; and you, madam, for what do you take me?"
"Are you not a--a pirate, sir?" she answered, hesitating. "They told me on the ship that you--"
"No pirate am I," interrupted the man, proudly, laying his hand on his sword. "I am an officer, and, with these gentlemen, am in the service of the United States of America, the new Republic--this is the American Continental ship Ranger. You are as safe with us as you would be in your own parlor at home. Safer, in fact; there you would be surrounded by servants; here are men who would die to prevent harm coming to you-- Is it not so, gentlemen?"