Our watch was ended, and we were in the act of quitting our post, when the maiden, taking one last look seaward, cried: “Is not that a sail away there?”
Sure enough it was, sparkling on the westward horizon, some two leagues to the larboard.
“Who cometh?” said I to myself, echoing the maiden’s song.
Chapter Twelve.
How we sailed into Leith.
A strange joy seized me as I sighted the unknown ship. For my heart told me she was no friend, and I was just in the humour for a fight. I was one too many on board the Miséricorde; and a brush with the Queen’s foes just now would comfort me amazingly. And yet, when I came to think of it, she lay in nearer the English coast than we, and was like enough to be no Queen’s enemy after all, but a Queen’s cruiser on the look-out for suspicious craft like ours. For we floated no colours aloft. After the late fight Ludar had hauled down the Frenchman’s flag; but it was in vain I begged him to hoist that of her royal Majesty in its place. He would not hear of it.
“No,” said he, “I sail under no false colours. This is a voyage for safety, not for glory, else I know the flag would fly there. As it is, Humphrey, ’tis best for us all to fly nothing. The masts shall go bare. The blue of a maiden’s eyes is colour enough for you and me to fight under.”
I could not gainsay him. We were in no trim for receiving broadsides, or grappling with sea-dogs, however merry the ports might be for a man in my plight. Our business was to bring the Miséricorde safe into Leith Roads, and to that venture we stood pledged.