The boat, soon loaded, went dragging through the flame-lit tide toward the ship. The old dame sat clutching Yvonne’s hand under the warm privacy of the cloak. Here was a weight off her mind. She loved Yvonne de Lamourie and Paul Grande better than any one else in the world; and with all her heart she believed that to hold them apart would mean ruin to others in the end, as well as to themselves. This which had now come about (she had trembled lest Yvonne should not prove quite strong enough at the last) seemed to her the best exit from a bad closure. Anderson she had ever regarded with hostile and unreasoning contempt; and now it suited her whim to tell herself that a part of her present satisfaction lay in the thought of him so ignominiously thwarted. But in very truth she believed that the thwarting was for his good; that he would recover from his hurt in time, and see himself well saved from the lifelong mordancy of a loveless marriage. In a word, what Mother Pêche wanted was the good of those she loved, and as little ill as might be to those she accounted enemies. Though the boat was packed with intimates of hers, she was absorbed in studying so much of Yvonne’s face as could be seen through the half-drawn hood. “She is, indeed, much better already,” said the old dame to herself. “This _was_ the one medicine.” Yvonne, for her part, had no eyes but for the ship she was approaching. Eagerly she scanned the bulwarks. Women’s heads, and children’s, she saw in plenty; but no men, save the sailors and a few red-coats. “Are none of the—are there no _men_ on this ship?” she whispered to Mother Pêche, in a sudden awful doubt. “But think, _chérie_,” muttered the old woman, “these men are dangerous. Would they be left on deck like women and children? But no, indeed. They are in the hold, surely; and in irons belike. But they are there—or on the other ship,” she added uneasily in her heart. By this the boat was come to the ship-side. By some one’s carelessness it was not rightly fended, and was suffered to bump heavily. One gunwale dipped; an icy flood poured in; there was imminent peril of swamping. Women jumped up with screams, and children caught at them, terror-stricken by the looming black wall of the ship’s side. The boatmen cursed fiercely. The two soldiers in the boat shouted: “Sit down! damn you! sit down!” with such authority that all obeyed at once. The shrill clamour ceased; the peril was over; the embarkation went on. Mother Pêche, with nerves of steel, had but gripped the more firmly upon Yvonne’s hand. As for Yvonne, she had apparently taken no note of the disturbance. Driven by a consuming purpose, which had gathered new fuel from the picture of the fettered captives in the hold, Yvonne had no sooner reached the deck than she started off to find the captain. But Mother Pêche was at her elbow on the instant, clinging to her. “I must see the captain at once!” exclaimed Yvonne, “and make some inquiry—find out _something_!”