At daylight next morning, Neb came to the officers' tents to say, the ship was getting her anchors. I was up and dressed in a moment. The distance to the inlet was about a mile, and I reached it, just as the Crisis was cast. In a few minutes she came sweeping into the narrow pass, under her topsails, and I saw Emily and her father, leaning over the hammock-cloths of the quarter-deck. The beautiful girl was so near, that I could read the expression of her soft eyes, and I fancied they were filled with gentle concern. The Major called out, “God bless you, dear Wallingford”—then the ship swept past, and was soon in the outer bay. Half an hour later, or before I left the spot, she was at sea, under everything that would draw from her trunks down.
CHAPTER XVII.
“I better brook the loss of brittle life,
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my flesh.”
SHAKESPEARE
Half-way between this inlet and the ship-yard, I found Marble, standing with his arms folded, gazing after the receding ship. His countenance was no longer saddened; but it was fierce. He shook his hand menacingly at the French ensign, which was flying at our old gaff, and said—
“Ay, d——n you, flutter away; you quiver and shake now like one of your coxcombs pigeon-winging; but where will you be this day two months? Miles, no man but a bloody Frenchman would cast away a ship, there where this Mister Count has left the bones of his vessel; though here, where we came so nigh going, it's a miracle any man could escape. Hadn't we brought the Crisis through that opening first, he never would have dared to go out by it.”
I confess I saw little about Monsieur Le Compte's management but skill and good seamanship; but nothing is more painful to most men than to admit the merit of those who have obtained an advantage over them. Marble could not forget his own defeat; and the recollection jaundiced his eyes, and biassed his judgment.
“I see our people are busy, already, sir,” I remarked, by way of drawing the captain's attention to some other subject. “They have hauled the schooner up to the yard, and seem to be getting along spars for shores.”
“Ay, ay—Talcott has his orders; and I expect you will bestir yourself. I shall step the masts myself, and you will get all the rigging ready to be put into its place, the moment it is possible. That Frenchman calculated, he told me to my face, that we might get to sea in a fortnight; I will let him see that a set of Yankees can rig and stow his bloody schooner, in three days, and then leave themselves time to play.”