I pass over the next few hours. Tish slept, and we drifted about at the mercy of wind and tide. About midnight a gale came up and gave us considerable trouble, as the boxes kept shifting. Lily May once more suggested flinging them overboard, but I dared not do this without Tish’s consent, and when I roused her and asked her she gave me no satisfaction.
“Shertainly not,” she said. “It’s evidench. Never destroy evidench, Lizzie.”
“She’ll snap out of it after a while,” Lily May comforted me. “But she’s sure gifted. I’ll bet a brandied peach would give her the D.T.’s.”
I was about to reprove her when I suddenly perceived that the wind had lifted the fog, and there was even a pale moonlight. And at that, Lily May clutched my arm and pointed ahead.
We had indeed been drifting with the tide, and the schooner was just ahead, within a hundred yards or so. We were moving slowly toward it.
I wakened Tish, and this time she responded. I can still see her, majestic and calm, clutching the rail and staring ahead. I can still hear the ringing tone of her voice when she said, “The hour of vengeance is at hand, Lizzie.”
“I’ll tell the world it is, if you go up there,” said Lily May.
But she brushed the child aside, and immediately Bill yelled from the schooner, “Stand by, there! What do you want?”
“We’re looking for trouble, Bill,” said Lily May. “If you have any around——”
But Bill recognized her voice, and he smiled down at us.