Shortly before midnight, Tom Bent went quietly about the task of waking both watches and the Beothics. The three boats from Fort Beatrix were manned, with the muffling oars. The two small anchors by which the Heart of the West swung in the tide were fished into two of the boats by hand. It was a tough job; but, when it was accomplished, the ship was free without so much as a clank of cable or a turn of the noisy capstan. Hawsers were passed from the small craft over the bows of the ship, and at a signal from a lantern in Kingswell's hand, the men bent their backs to the oars. Then all lights aboard the Heart of the West were covered, and in the darkness, beside the great tiller, Kingswell caught his inspiration and his reward to his heart again.

The girl did not leave the commander's side, but kept watch on the high poop-deck throughout the journey. Until dawn the rowers held to their toil, and after them, drawn by lines that were sometimes taut and sometimes under water, but always invisible in the darkness, the ship stole like a shape of cloud and dream. It was hard work, and slow. With the breaking of dawn, the leviathan took on signs of life. By that time she was hidden from Wigwam Harbour by more than one bluff headland. The pulling boats drifted to her bows, the capstan was manned, and the anchors were lifted to their places on the forecast rail. Headsails were set, and the square mizzen was run up. The boats dropped astern and were made fast, and the weary men climbed aboard the ship.

All day the Heart of the West threaded the green waterways of the great Bay of Exploits. A light and favourable breeze lent itself to the venture. After the midday meal, Beatrix, wrapped in a blanket, lay down by the mizzen and fell asleep. She was tired. The easy motion of the ship, and the song of the wind in ropes and canvas, sank her fathoms deep in slumber, with the magic of a fairy lullaby. Kingswell rigged a piece of sail-cloth from the bulwarks to the mast to shade her face from the sun.

At last the wide estuary, which ends in Gray Goose River, was reached. By sunset the mouth of the river was entered. Just then the wind failed. The boats were manned again, and the ship taken in tow.

Still Mistress Westleigh slumbered peacefully, with the rough blanket about her dainty body and her head pillowed on Kingswell's folded coat. Kneeling beside her, Kingswell peered under the shelter of canvas, and saw that she was smiling in her dreams. How white were her dropped eyelids, and how clear and rose-tinted her small face. Her lips were parted a little, as if to whisper some sweet secret. A strand of her bright, dark hair was across her forehead, and one arm, clear of the blanket and the deerskin on which she lay, rested on the deck. The rosy palm was upturned. Kingswell stooped lower and kissed it softly. Standing up, he found Tom Bent beside him. The mahogany-hued mariner grinned sheepishly, and gave a hitch to his belt.

"Beggin' the lady's pardon," he whispered, "but, if the angels in heaven be half so sweet to look at as herself, I'm for going to heaven, in spite o' the devil. Sink me, but I'd play one o' they golden harps with a light heart if—if the equals of herself were a-listenin' on the quarter-deck."

Kingswell blushed and smiled. "You, too?" said he. "You are in love, Tom Bent."

"Ay, sir," replied the boatswain, "for it can't be helped. I'm in love and awash, and danged near to sinkin'. Might as well expect a man to keep sober in the 'Powdered Admiral' on Bristol dock as within ten knots, to win'ward or lee'ard, o' your sweetheart, sir."

"I agree with you," replied the gentleman, bowing gravely.

Tom Bent pulled his scant forelock, and rolled away about his duty. He was mightily pleased with himself at having expressed his admiration for his young commander's choice in such felicitous terms. He prided himself on his eye for feminine beauty, no matter what the race or the rank of the fair one,—and a fairer than Mistress Westleigh he swore by all the gods of the Seven Seas he had never laid eyes on.

The long spring twilight was gathering into dusk when the toiling boats and the tall ship rounded the point, and opened the fort to the view of the daring cruisers. Directly in front of the stockade the anchors plunged into the brown current. The rattle of the cables through the hawse-holes awoke Beatrix. She had been dreaming of a great garden in Somerset, and of walking along box-hedged paths with her father on one side and her lover on the other. Opening her eyes upon the canvas shelter which Kingswell had spread above her, and with the clangour of the running cables in her ears, for a second she did not know where she was. A vague fear oppressed her for a little. Then she recalled the incidents of the last two days, and was about to crawl from her resting-place, when the edge of the shelter was lifted, and Kingswell looked down at her.

"Wake up," he said. "We are at the fort, and Trigget and Maggie Stone are coming off in a canoe."

"Nay, then I'll stay here until you explain matters," she replied. "You must bear the brunt of Maggie Stone's displeasure for my sake." She sat up, laughing softly, and lifted her face in a way that only a dunce could fail to comprehend. Under cover of the strip of sail-cloth, he kissed the warm lips and the bright hair.

"Trust me," he laughed; and at that moment Trigget and the servant climbed to the poop by way of the ladder from the ship's waist. He advanced to meet them. He saw that Trigget held a folded paper in his hand, and that the honest eyes of that bold mariner were red and moist.

"What is it?" he inquired; for he had entirely forgotten, for the time being, the manner of Mistress Westleigh's joining with the expedition.

"Here be your will, sir," said Trigget, handing him the paper. "It—it—well, maybe it'll not be o' any use now."

"Of course not," replied Kingswell, cheerfully, tearing it across.

Maggie Stone burst into tears. "Jus' the way Sir Ralph went," she sobbed. "Oh, my beautiful little lady—an' her fit mate for any nobleman of London town!"

"What the devil do you mean?" cried Kingswell. Then the truth dawned in his preoccupied brain. "Dry your eyes," he said. "She is safe and sound."

"Thank God for that," exclaimed William Trigget, devoutly.

"What—the mistress be safe, d'ye say?" cried Maggie Stone, with a sudden change of face.

Kingswell nodded curtly. He did not like being bawled at on the poop of his recaptured ship, even by an old serving maid. "Your mistress is safe—and in my care," he said.

"Indeed, sir?" she queried. "An' may I make so bold as to ax when ye married Sir Ralph Westleigh's daughter?"

William Trigget murmured something to the effect that his presence was required forward, and took his departure. Kingswell bit his lip and stared haughtily at the woman; but he was at a loss for words fully expressive of his feelings. His indignation brought a flush to his cheeks which even the dusk of evening could not hide.

"Ye may well redden," cried Maggie Stone. "Ay, ye may well redden, after sailin' away with an unprotected lass, an' near terrifyin' her old nurse into fits."

The gentleman recovered his power of speech. "My good girl," he said (and she was a full twenty years older than his mother), "your joy at hearing of your mistress's safety takes a wondrous queer and unseemly way of expressing itself. You seem to forget that you, the lady's servant, are addressing the lady's betrothed husband."

The old maid glared and drew her scanty skirts about her.

"Maybe so," she retorted. "'Twould never have happened in Somerset."

At that moment Mistress Beatrix appeared suddenly from the other side of the mizzen.

"How dare you!" she cried. "How dare you speak so to Master Kingswell!"

Anger—quick, scathing anger—rang in her voice. Standing there in her short skirt, high, beaded moccasins, and blue cloth jacket, she looked like an indignant boy, save for her coiled hair and bright beauty.

"I am ashamed of you," she added; and then, turning quickly, she flung herself into Kingswell's ever ready embrace.

Maggie Stone was flustered and somewhat awed by the sudden attack. She had not been spoken to so for years and years. Would she resort to tears again, or would she answer back? She was jealous of the girl's love for Kingswell—and yet she had thanked God many times that that love had been won by the young Englishman instead of by the swarthy D'Antons. She sniffed, and mopped her eyes with the back of her hand. Then she changed her mind and bridled.

"What would the countess, your aunt, say to such behaviour?" she asked. "Her who watched over ye like a guardian angel in London town."

Beatrix turned, and, still holding her lover's hands, faced the carping critic.

"And who turned me out of her house at the last of it," she cried, scornfully. "Who is she, or who was she ever, to question my behaviour? And who are you, woman, to insult your mistress and the gentleman who saved you from the knives of the savages? Go back to the fort."

Maggie Stone saw that she had made a serious mistake,—a mistake which, perhaps, would alienate the lady's affection for ever. She turned, a pitiable figure, and made to descend the steep ladder which stood close to the starboard side of the ship, and led to the waist. Her foot caught in a loop of rope that had not been properly stopped up to its belaying-pin. She lurched against the line that ran from the break of the poop to the bulwarks below, made a blind effort to right herself, and pitched over into the shadowed water below. She did not even scream.

Kingswell dropped his sweetheart's hands, ran to the side and jumped after the foolish old woman. By that time the twilight had left the river. The current carried him swiftly down-stream, close under the side of the ship. The water was uncomfortably cold, and his thick clothes dragged at his limbs. He cleared his hair from his eyes. A disturbance appeared on the surface of the stream a few yards ahead. With a quick stroke or two, he reached it, and caught Maggie Stone by a thin shoulder. She struggled desperately, mad with fright. Both were pulled over the gunwale of the Pelican not a moment too soon.