I made no answer, but saw our bows crawl out and away, felt the sob of the screws, the arm of the river also, and knew a vast and pleasing content with life.
“L’Olonnois!” I called through the megaphone.
“Aye, aye, Sir!” I heard his piping rejoinder.
“Cast loose the stern-chaser and fire her at yon varlet if he makes a move.” I knew our deck cannon was loaded with nothing more deadly than newspapers, but I also knew that valor feeds on action. Not that I had given orders to fire on the world in general. So, I confess, I was somewhat surprised, soon after the shout of approval which greeted my command, to hear the air rent by the astonishing reverberation of our Long Tom, which rolled like thunder all along the river-front, breaking into a thousand echoes in the night.
I heard the patter of feet along the deck, and had sight of Jean Lafitte tugging at a halyard. Not content with our defiance of law and order, he must needs break out the Jolly Rover with its skull and cross-bones. And as we swung swiftly out into midstream, ablaze in light from bow to stern, ghostlike in our swiftness and the silence of our splendid engines, I had reason to understand all the descriptive writing which, as I later learned, greeted the defiant departure of this pirate craft and its ruffian crew. Thus I bade all the world come and take from me what I had taken for my own.
I stepped to the wheel with Peterson, expecting to find him pale in consternation. To my surprise he was calm, save for a new glitter in his eye.
“There’s nothing on the river can touch her,” said he, as he picked up his first channel light and called for more speed. “Let ’em come!”
A sudden recklessness had caught us all, it seemed, the old spirit of lawless man breaking the leash of custom. I shared it—with exultation I knew I shared it with these others. The lust of youth for adventure held us all, and the years were as naught.
I turned now to find Helena, and met L’Olonnois, his face beaming.
“Wasn’t that a peach of a shot?” said he. “It would of blew yon varlet out of the water, if I’d had anything to load with except just them marbles. Are you looking for Auntie Helen? She has just went below.”