fashion, while a little black ball ran up to her peak, and the rare old
flag streamed suddenly out from the halliard. Then again came the rap,
rap, rap, of her little guns, and the boom, boom of the big carronades
in the bows of the lugger. An instant later the three ships met, and
the merchant-man staggered on like a stag with two wolves hanging to its
haunches. The three became but a dark blurr amid the smoke, with the
top spars thrusting out in a bristle, and from the heart of that cloud
came the quick red flashes of flame, and such a devils' racket of big
guns and small, cheering and screaming, as was to din in my head for
many a week. For a stricken hour the hell-cloud moved slowly across the
face of the water, and still with our hearts in our mouths we watched
the flap of the flag, straining to see if it were yet there. And then
suddenly, the ship, as proud and black and high as ever, shot on upon
her way; and as the smoke cleared we saw one of the luggers squattering
like a broken winged duck upon the water, and the other working hard to
get the crew from her before she sank.

For all that hour I had lived for nothing but the fight. My cap had
been whisked away by the wind, but I had never given it a thought.
Now with my heart full I turned upon my Cousin Edie, and the sight of
her took me back six years. There was the vacant staring eye and the
parted lips, just as I had seen them in her girlhood, and her little
hands were clenched until the knuckles gleamed like ivory.

"Ah, that captain!" said she, talking to the heath and the
whin-bushes. "There is a man so strong, so resolute! What woman would
not be proud of a man like that?"

"Aye, he did well!" I cried with enthusiasm.