We were by before they were alive to it. A voice, another voice, a hundred voices, and then we saw her green sidelight swing in a great arc; but long before then we were away on the other tack, and so when her broadside belched (and there was metal sufficient to blow us out of water), we were half a mile away and leaping like a black hound to the westward.
A score of rockets followed the broadside. Captain Blaise glanced astern, then ahead, aloft, and from there to the swinging hull beneath him. He started to hum a tune, but broke it off, to recite:
"O the woe of wily Hassan
When they break the tragic news!"
[pg 149]
And from that he turned to Miss Cunningham with a joyous, "And what d'y' think of it all?"
She looked her answer, with her head held high and breathing deeply.
"And the Dancing Bess, isn't she a little jewel of a ship? Something to love? Aye, she is. And you had no fear?"
"Fear!" Her laughter rang out. "When father went below, he said, 'Fear nothing. If Captain Blaise gets caught, there's no help for it—it's fate.'"