At last the wide estuary, which ends in Gray Goose River, was reached. By sunset the mouth of the river was entered. Just then the wind failed. The boats were manned again, and the ship taken in tow.
Still Mistress Westleigh slumbered peacefully, with the rough blanket about her dainty body and her head pillowed on Kingswell's folded coat. Kneeling beside her, Kingswell peered under the shelter of canvas, and saw that she was smiling in her dreams. How white were her dropped eyelids, and how clear and rose-tinted her small face. Her lips were parted a little, as if to whisper some sweet secret. A strand of her bright, dark hair was across her forehead, and one arm, clear of the blanket and the deerskin on which she lay, rested on the deck. The rosy palm was upturned. Kingswell stooped lower and kissed it softly. Standing up, he found Tom Bent beside him. The mahogany-hued mariner grinned sheepishly, and gave a hitch to his belt.
"Beggin' the lady's pardon," he whispered, "but, if the angels in heaven be half so sweet to look at as herself, I'm for going to heaven, in spite o' the devil. Sink me, but I'd play one o' they golden harps with a light heart if—if the equals of herself were a-listenin' on the quarter-deck."
Kingswell blushed and smiled. "You, too?" said he. "You are in love, Tom Bent."
"Ay, sir," replied the boatswain, "for it can't be helped. I'm in love and awash, and danged near to sinkin'. Might as well expect a man to keep sober in the 'Powdered Admiral' on Bristol dock as within ten knots, to win'ward or lee'ard, o' your sweetheart, sir."
"I agree with you," replied the gentleman, bowing gravely.
Tom Bent pulled his scant forelock, and rolled away about his duty. He was mightily pleased with himself at having expressed his admiration for his young commander's choice in such felicitous terms. He prided himself on his eye for feminine beauty, no matter what the race or the rank of the fair one,—and a fairer than Mistress Westleigh he swore by all the gods of the Seven Seas he had never laid eyes on.
The long spring twilight was gathering into dusk when the toiling boats and the tall ship rounded the point, and opened the fort to the view of the daring cruisers. Directly in front of the stockade the anchors plunged into the brown current. The rattle of the cables through the hawse-holes awoke Beatrix. She had been dreaming of a great garden in Somerset, and of walking along box-hedged paths with her father on one side and her lover on the other. Opening her eyes upon the canvas shelter which Kingswell had spread above her, and with the clangour of the running cables in her ears, for a second she did not know where she was. A vague fear oppressed her for a little. Then she recalled the incidents of the last two days, and was about to crawl from her resting-place, when the edge of the shelter was lifted, and Kingswell looked down at her.
"Wake up," he said. "We are at the fort, and Trigget and Maggie Stone are coming off in a canoe."
"Nay, then I'll stay here until you explain matters," she replied. "You must bear the brunt of Maggie Stone's displeasure for my sake." She sat up, laughing softly, and lifted her face in a way that only a dunce could fail to comprehend. Under cover of the strip of sail-cloth, he kissed the warm lips and the bright hair.