The light from the Cavendish hearth continued to brighten the scene, for Polly was recklessly sacrificing her best straw tick. Indeed her behavior was in every way worthy of the noble alliance she had formed. Her cob-pipe was not suffered to go out and with Connie's help she kept the six small Cavendishes from risking life and limb in the keel boat, toward which they were powerfully drawn. Despite these activities she found time to call to Betty and Hannibal on the cabin roof.
“Jump down here; that ain't no fittin' place for you-all to stop in with them gentlemen fightin'!”
An instant later Betty and Hannibal stood on the raft with the little Cavendishes flocking about them. Mr. Yancy's quest of his nevvy had taken an enduring hold on their imagination. For weeks it had constituted their one vital topic, and the fight became merely a satisfying background for this interesting restoration.
“Sho', they'd got him! Sho'—he wa'n't no bigger than Richard! Sho'!”
“Oh!” cried Betty, with a fearful glance toward the keel boat. “Can't you stop them?”
“What fo'?” asked Polly, opening her black eyes very wide.
“Bless yo' tender heart!-you don't need to worry none, we got them strange gentlemen licked like they was a passel of children! Connie, you-all mind that fire!”
She accurately judged the outcome of the fight. The boat was little better than a shambles with the havoc that had been wrought there when Yancy and Carrington dropped over its side to the raft. Cavendish followed them, whooping his triumph as he came.