I pointed to the figures which we could see through the open windows.
"Well, that's my business," he said shortly. "I'm in command, and I'm not a fool." As he spoke he fingered his revolver.
"Oh, do not be afraid. It is all right," said Mademoiselle cheerfully. "See, we will have more open. I will play them something. They are listening to my music. It will soothe them."
She cast a look at Sir John from her laughing dark eyes, and let her hands down on the keys with a bang, breaking into a jolly air of the boulevards.
"Stay," she cried, stopping quickly, "but I know one of your English tunes suitable for the sea. How do you call it? Tom-bolling!"
As she spoke she swerved softly into that favourite air, the English words running oddly from her lips.
"'Ere a sheer 'ulk lies poor Tom Bo-olling..."
From the deck came a burst of applause. She laughed in delight, and winked up at me.
"I can do more with them than your guns," she said boldly, and was sailing into the next verse when the Princess intervened.
"Mademoiselle," she said in French, "you are inconveniencing the officers. They have much to do."