Mate Taber, with more than half of the Noank's company, was put in charge of the Lynx. All of the prisoners, also, were left in her.
"Homeward bound, Taber," shouted Captain Morgan, as the ships parted from their too close companionship. "Take your own course to New London. The main thing is to get in."
"Ay, ay!" called back the old Groton sailor. "We'll get there. We'd best keep within signal distance as long as we can, but the schooner's riggin' needs repairs, and ours doesn't."
"All right," said Morgan. "Keep company!"
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SPENT SHOT.
The first few hours after a sea-fight are apt to have a great deal in them. There was not a moment of time wasted on board the Noank, for the spare spars taken from the Arran were just the right things to be sent up in place of the sticks which had been shattered by the fire of the Lynx. Not until they should be in place could the swift schooner show her paces, and they had been going up even while the ocean burials were attended to.
"This is awful news to carry home to poor Mrs. Avery," groaned Guert, as he lay in his bunk. "I don't care much for my hurts, but I wish I could be on deck. I'm almost glad I'm wounded. I know how Nathan Hale would feel about it. He'd say it was little enough for a fellow to suffer for his country and for liberty. I'll never forget him."
Away off there on the ocean, therefore, in a schooner bunk, in the dark, the memory of America's hero was doing its beautiful work, as it has been doing ever since, a bright example set, as a star that will not go down.