She drank it up, and then he helped her to her feet. She stood leaning on the rail, but unable to see the boat through her tears. Leigh ran up a few of the ratlines and waved his cap and, two or three minutes later, the whole crew, clustered along the side, raised a loud cheer as the boat came near.
Patsey held out her arms to Jean, who had, after his first eager signal, dropped back into his seat; and sat there, with his face covered in his hands, until within two or three hundred yards of the lugger. Then he had stood up again. He waved his cap in reply to the cheers of the crew, but his eyes were fixed upon Patsey.
As the boat came alongside he sprang on to the channel, swung himself over the rail, Patsey falling into his arms as his feet touched the deck. The others all drew back and, for two or three minutes, husband and wife stood together. Then Jean, placing Patsey in a chair, turned and embraced Leigh warmly.
"I felt sure that you would bring her back safely," he said. "I never allowed myself to doubt it, for a minute; and as soon as I made the lugger out, from the height there, I was sure that she was on board; and ran down to the coast guard station, and Captain Whittier and the crew were in her, in a couple of minutes.
"Where is Louis?"
"Here he is!" Monsieur Flambard said, coming forward with the child in his arms.
Louis knew his father at once, and greeted him with a little shout of pleasure.
"And you, too, Flambard?" Jean said, after he had kissed and embraced his boy. "I am glad indeed that you, too, have escaped from that inferno they call France."