"Silly!" said the girl from the turf where she sat with her hands round her knees. "They can't hear you!"
"Oh, guyabble! Oh, bon Gyu!" and he stood stiff and stark, as the great ship narrowed as she turned towards them suddenly, and came threading her way through the bristling rocks, in a way that passed belief and set the hair in the nape of the boy's neck crawling with apprehension.
"Platte Boue!" he gasped, as she came safely past that danger. "Grand Amfroque!" and he began to dance.
"Founiais!" and she came out into Great Russel with a glorious sweep, shook herself proudly to the other tack, and went foaming past the Equêtelées and the Grands Bouillons, swept round the south of Jethou, and began short tacking for Peter Port in wake of her consorts.
Since the guns, the drama out there had unfolded itself in silence, and silence was unnatural when such goings-on were toward. The small boy danced and waved his arms and cheered frantically. The ships beyond the reefs were streaming away discomfited to the north-east, in the direction of La Hague.
The small girl nursed her knees, and watched, with only partial understanding of it all in her looks.
"Why are you so crazy about it?" she asked.
"Because we've won, you silly!"
"Of course! We're English. But all the same we ran away."
"We're English"—and there was a touch of the true insular pride in her voice, but they spoke in French, and not very good French at that, and scarce a word of English had one of them at that time.