With that he struck Danny a terrible blow and felled him.
The lad got up abashed, and without a word turned to his work. Kisseck, still in a tempest of wrath, was leaping back to the lugger, when the young woman stepped up to him, looked fearlessly in his face, seemed about to speak, checked herself, and turned away.
Kisseck stood measuring her from head to foot with his eyes, broke into a little bitter laugh, and said:
"I'm right up and down like a yard of pumpwater; that's what I am."
He jumped aboard again. Danny ran the rope from the blocks, the admiral's boat cleared away, and the flag shot up to the mast-head. The other boats followed one after one to the number of nearly one hundred. The bay was full of them.
When Kisseck's boat had cleared the harbor, Danny ran down the steps of the pier with eyes still averted from the two women and the child, got into the dingey, took an oar and began to scull after it.
"Sissy, Sissy," cried Ruby, tugging at Mona's dress, "look at Danny's little boat. What's the name that is on it in red letters?"
"'Ben-my-Chree,'" the young woman answered.
Then the herring fleet sailed away under the glow of the setting sun.