Latitude 19 degree Part 4

"Don't hide your cowardice behind my poor old Uncle. If no one else will do anything, I'll--Get me a slow match; light it quickly, do you hear?"

with a stamp of the foot at the cabin boy.

"Shall we put any blankets in the boat, Mr. Jones, sir?" asked the Bo's'n. "Something for the lady----"

I ran down below into Cynthia's cabin. Even with all the hurry, confusion, and excitement of the moment, I did not fail to note the neatness of that white little room. I tore the blanket from the smoothly made bed and seized a pillow from its place. I stood looking around a moment to see if there was anything more that she might want. I saw on the dresser a little note-book, with a pencil slipped into the loops.

This I put into my pocket with a picture done by a Belleville artist of Aunt Mary 'Zekel. Another of a very meek-looking man, with his hair brushed forward over his ears, and a collar the points of which ran up nearly to his eyes, I took it to be William Brown. This I detached from the hook on which it hung, and, going to the open port, I thrust my arm through and tossed it up in the air, hoping that Cynthia would in this way look her last on the face of my rival. Simultaneously with my toss of the picture there came a report from overhead, and I saw some fragments of shattered gla.s.s. I knew that the six-pounder on the p.o.o.p had been fired.

I hurried on deck, enc.u.mbered with the pillow and blanket. The smell of gunpowder was in the air. Cynthia was standing defiantly by the gun. She had just dropped the slow match. The Skipper was dancing in rage on the p.o.o.p.

"Now you've done it! Now you've done it!" he screamed. "You've made 'em so angry there's no telling what they'll do.--Are the boats all ready, Mr. Jones?"

"If we are going to run, we may as well show them a little Yankee spirit first," said Cynthia. "I wish I could make them hear me. I would tell them that the only man on board this vessel's a girl."

I had picked up the gla.s.s and was trying to get a sight on the long boat. She was a little way from the end of the s.h.i.+p, and Cynthia through sheer luck had struck her amids.h.i.+ps. I saw that there were five or six men struggling to keep afloat. A boat was being lowered to pick them up.

"Seems to me now's our time to go," said the Skipper. "Just look at the guns on board that fellow!" He turned on Cynthia, his face crimson, his eyes fierce and angry. "How dare you accuse me of being a coward?" He shook his fist in her face. "I'm thinking of you more than anybody. We haven't a ghost of a chance with those fellows if they're what I think they are. You may talk to Jones there; he's weak enough to stand it, but by----"

"Mr. Jones has taken the precaution to have a comfortable time, at all events," said Cynthia, with a scornful glance at the blanket and pillow.

"If you're really going ash.o.r.e, Uncle, I'll just step below and get my bag. I'm glad I packed it now."

She disappeared down the companion way, and after a few moments, during which we were getting the Jacob's ladder slung so that she could descend into the long boat, she came on deck again. A sound of stumbling and a banging of metal preceded her.

When she appeared above the hatchcombings, I saw that she held a worked canvas bag in one hand and a large, square parrot's cage in the other. A shot from the stranger went over our heads at that moment, doing no damage beyond cutting away a few threads of rope, which fell upon the cage.

"d.a.m.n those Britishers!" said the parrot.

"They didn't do much that time--only cut off those Irish pennants.

That's a very sensible bird of yours, Cynthy," said the Skipper, who remembered the late war only too well.

"I'm glad there are some brains on board," answered Cynthia, "if only a bird's."

"Get in the boat and stop sa.s.sin' me!" ordered the Skipper.

I handed the blanket and pillow to the Bo's'n, who placed them in the bow, thus making a comfortable seat.

"You'd better go up in the bows," I said to Cynthia, as I helped her down from the wobbling Jacob's ladder. She stepped exactly on the middle of the seat. I never saw another girl step anywhere but on the gun'l.

The Skipper took the steering oar.

"I'll keep the Yankee Blade between us and them," said he.

"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," remarked Cynthia gratuitously.

I sat forward of the men, next to Cynthia.

"Where's William Brown?" I asked. We were about three boats' lengths from the s.h.i.+p. Cynthia arose in her seat.

"O Uncle! wait!" she called; "I must go back a moment. I have forgotten something."

The Skipper paid no more attention than if she had not spoken.

"Not too short a stroke, Bill," he said, "but strong, strong. Am I keeping the Yankee Blade between us?"

"You be, sir," answered the stroke.

Cynthia sat down, impelled to do so partly by the jerk of the oars and partly by the silence of her Uncle.

"I thought you never forgot him for a moment."

"I never do. That was the only time all this voyage. If it hadn't been for you, Mr. Jones----"

This sentence was subject to two constructions. I tried to look upon it as an admission.

A shot fell over the Yankee Blade and pierced the water just behind us.

"d.a.m.n those Britishers!" said the parrot.

"I'll give you fifty dollars for that bird when you get him home, Cynthy," said the Skipper. "Did you teach him that?"

"_I!_" There was a world of wrath in Cynthia's tones. "He was probably taught by the Minion when he took the cage out to clean it."

Cynthia jumped excitedly to her feet.

"Oh! See there, Mr. Jones, they are firing on the flag! There goes a shot through it! I don't suppose they know we have left yet. The Yankee careened so."

It was true. Our emblem, which we had left floating at the masthead, had been shot directly through the field, and some of the stars were carried away with the ball. Cynthia wrung her hands.

"Uncle Antony," she screamed, if that sweet voice could ever have been said to do anything so vulgar, "let us go back! Don't you see? They have fired on the flag."

"Don't get fl.u.s.tered," said the Skipper to the stroke. "Steady and strong wins to-day. My niece's a little excitable."

Cynthia heard the words. She turned on me, her lips white with suppressed pa.s.sion.

"You know what the trouble with the English is, don't you, Mr. Jones?"

"Yes, I know of several failings they have; first, they----"

She took the words out of my mouth.

"They haven't a cowardly hair in their heads," she said. "I am ashamed to-day, for the first time in my life, of being an American."

Of course, she did not see that it would have been worse than foolhardy to remain, and I did not try to convince her.

"I see a man on the foc's'l," said Cynthia.

"Nonsense!" roared the Skipper from the stern. "We ain't goin' back for anybody. They had their chance.--Is there any one on board, Bill?"

"There is, sir."