It was about now that Miss Aurora came on deck. She looked up at the sails of the brig, at the flag flying at our trysail gaff-end, at the approaching schooner, the open gangway, the boat lying in it, the men hanging about the little fabric.
“Holy Mother!” cried she, and in a step or two she was at my side. “What is it? What is wrong? What is happening?”
Bol, who stood with others near the boat, hearing her turned. The huge man approached and was calling out before I could answer the girl.
“Mr. Fielding, der lady must go below.”
“Must!”
“Yaw, by Cott! I vhas skipper for dis leedle while. You vhas not to be seen, marm. Dot vhas so I play no bart mit you on deck.”
He came to the companion way, and with a face full of blood and temper, pointed down the ladder, exclaiming in his deepest thunder, “Quick, if you please. Doan’ be afraid. It vhas all right. No von vhas hurt over dis shob.”
“Go,” said I, “do as he bids you. See how those fellows are watching us.”
She obeyed me with an extraordinary look; the expression of a naturally fierce spirit contending with womanly terror; I’d think of it afterward always as if the girl had had two souls—one of flame, a gift of fighting blood older than the Moors perhaps; the other just a woman’s.
“My ladts,” bawled Bol to the men, “keep yourselves out of sight. Aft some of you, und standt by to swing der topsail yard. Manage dot your heads vhas not seen.”