“It was a mutiny, Williams,” said I, “and I am the head mutineer. But you’re sure of your pay, so let her go.”
He did let her go, smoothly and brilliantly, so that before long she was at her top speed, around fifteen knots an hour. I was familiar with every detail of the Belle Helène, and now I looked in both the generating plant and the storage batteries, so that four thousand candle-power of electric light blazed over her from bow to fantail. The steady purr of the Belle Helène’s double sixties—engines I had had made under my own care—came to me with a soothing rhythm where I stood near by the wheel. Her search-light made a vast illumination far ahead. Brilliant enough must have seemed the passing spectacle of our stanch little ship to any observer, as we now swept on down the tawny flood of the great river. Who would deny me the feeling of exultation which came to me? Was I not captor and captain of my own ship?
I turned to meet L’Olonnois, my blue-eyed pirate. He stood at my side as one glorified. The full swing of romance had him, the full illusion of this,—imagination’s most ardent desire—now gripped him fully. He was no boy, but a human being possessed of all his dreams. His second self, once oppressed, now free, stood before me wholly satisfied. I needed not to ask whether he had been faithful to his trust.
“I locked the door on ’em, Black Bart,” said he, “and bade them cease a idle remonstrancing. ‘Little do you know,’ say I to them, ‘that Black Bart the Avenger is now on the trail. Let any oppose him at their peril,’ says I to them. She give me candy, the fair captive did, but I spurned her bribe. ‘Beware,’ says I to her. ‘Little do you know what lies before you.’”
CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH IS CONVERSATION WITH THE CAPTIVE MAIDEN
JEAN LAFITTE, who had so well executed the work assigned him in the boarding party’s plans, proved himself neither inefficient nor unobservant. He approached me now, with a salute, which probably he copied from Peterson.
“How now, good leftenant?” said I.