I was yet gazing on her in dumb and stark amaze, when from somewhere hard by a man cried out in wild and awful fashion, and as this agonised screaming swelled upon the air, Joanna rose up to her feet and stood transfigured, her eyes fierce and wild, her clenched teeth agleam 'twixt curling lips; and presently through the swirling smoke limped Resolution Day, a dreadful, bedabbled figure, who, beholding Joanna on her feet, flourished a dripping blade and panted exultant.
"He is dead?" she questioned.
"Verily and thoroughly!" said Resolution, wringing blood from his beruffled shirt sleeve. "And a moist end he made on't. But thee, Joanna, I grieved thee surely dead—"
"Nay, I screamed and dropped in time, but—hark, the Englishman's fire is ceasing and see, Resolution—look yonder!" and she pointed where our antagonist, sore battered in hull and spars, was staggering out of the fight.
And now in place of roaring battle was sudden hush, yet a quietude this, troubled by thin cryings, waitings and the like distressful sounds; and the smoke lifting showed something of the havoc about us, viz: our riven bulwarks, the tangled confusion of shattered spars, ropes and fallen gear, the still and awful shapes that cumbered the spattered decks, more especially about the smoking guns where leaned their wearied crews, a blood-stained, powder-grimed company, cheering fitfully as they watched the English ship creeping away from us.
To us presently cometh Diccon, his blackened face streaked with sweat, hoarse-voiced but hearty:
"Aha, Captain Jo—your luck's wi' us as ever! Yon curst craft hath her bellyful at last, aye, has she!"
"I doubt!" quoth Resolution, shaking his head, whiles Joanna, leaning against the mast, pointed feebly and I noticed her sleeve was soaked with blood and her speech dull and indistinct:
"Resolution is i' the—right—see!"
And sure enough the English ship, having fetched ahead of us and beyond range of our broadside guns, had hauled her wind and now lay to, her people mighty busy making good their damage alow and aloft, stopping shot-holes, knotting and splicing their gear, etc. Hereupon Diccon falls to a passion of vain oaths, Resolution to quoting Psalms and Joanna, sighing, slips suddenly to the deck and lies a-swoon. In a moment Resolution was on his knees beside her.