Douglas was waiting for Gervase in the boat of the _Phoenix_, and welcomed him with a grim smile as he took his place beside him. He said nothing, but motioned to the two sailors to push off and row to the brig. When they got out of earshot, he burst into a hoarse cackle of laughter that grated unpleasantly on Gervase´s overstrung nerves. “I wouldn´t have missed it,” he cried, clapping his brown hands on his knees, “for a puncheon of rum. Man, ye gave it to him finely, and ye talked like a book straight up and down. A good wholesail breeze all the way and lying your course as straight as an arrow. It did my heart good to hear you. And he couldn´t get in a word--never a word, but stared at you out of his red bulging eyes, and choked about the jaws like a turkey cock strangling in a passion. You´re a well plucked one and no mistake. I had thought to see you, as he said, at the end of the yard-arm.” “Yon swaggering bully is an arrant coward,” said Gervase, “and I wonder how he came to be chosen for a work like this. For all his bluster I saw that he was quailing, and I was determined that he should hear the truth for once in his life.” “He didn´t hear a third of it, but I´m thinking he heard as much as was good for him. Will they move, think ye?” “Leake says----” “He´s a man at any rate; I´d like to know what he says.” “That we´ll see what we´ll see. He thinks my speech hath done little harm, but I know not whether it hath done any good. God grant that it hath.” “Amen and Amen to that. Now let us go aboard, and let us see whether your adventure has taken away your appetite.” CHAPTER XX. OF HOW THE GREAT DELIVERANCE WAS WROUGHT. On their regaining the deck of the _Phoenix_ McKeller manifested great anxiety to hear the result of the interview, and the master had a greatly interested audience as he proceeded to describe the scene with many embellishments and quaint touches of his own. What seemed to have struck him most was Kirke´s helpless rage, and the speechless anger he exhibited at the attack upon his courage and capacity. Gervase lay against the bulwarks listening without a word; his eyes were fixed on the square tower of the Cathedral rising through the pall of smoke that overhung the city. In thought he saw the haggard gunners on the war-torn battlements, and the sorrowing crowd pouring out from the morning service. His mind was filled with the horror and misery of it, and his heart was bitter within him. He suddenly started and cleared his eyes as if he could not trust his sight; then he looked again. “Merciful God!” he cried, “the flag is down.”