Hugh looked at the assistant and saw a sorry picture. “’Tis a ghost,” he exclaimed, “not a man in flesh and fell.”
“The corpse of Courage,” added Prat, after the poet’s manner.
The man they discussed seemed like a ghost indeed, that would fade with the mist when the sun rose higher. His face, pallid and haggard, was turned toward the cock-boat as to a last resort.
“He would leave,” observed Rouse, while, side by side with Roger, he pushed the governor’s craft slowly forward. For a moment the keel ceased grating on the shingle, and Prat turned to Ananias. “Oh, Master Dare, I pray you give us aid! ’Tis a most unconscionable task!” At which one or two others near the cock-boat exchanged winks and covert smiles. They showed no mercy. Dare, between the two soldiers, was forced himself to cut the last thread between danger and safety.
The prow fell free, and finally the boat was floating. Then the on-lookers saw Ananias stagger, or, rather, almost spring forward, having, they supposed, lost his balance as the craft shot out from land. But Hugh’s immense hand, grasping his belt, pulled him backward to save him (the by-standers believed) from a ducking. Rouse and Prat walked away arm-in-arm. “Well done, midget; I had not thought so dense a brain would fathom his intention.”
Slowly the Admiral and fly-boat sailed away, their hulls, bulwarks, and deck-houses vanishing beyond the inlet from the ocean until only the shrouds remained, and now the whole colony had left the shore, save one woman. Long she watched the sails that, like white clouds, seemed to grow smaller, and at last dissolve entirely beneath the eastern sun.
Finally a naked horizon met Eleanor’s eyes at the edge of a brassy sea, and she turned back to the town.