Raoul was too deliberate, and too much collected, not to feel his advantage.  Anxious to keep his means of further defence in the best condition, he directed all the guns to cease, and the damages to be repaired.  Then he went with a party toward the boat that had fallen into his hands.  To encumber himself with prisoners of any sort, in his actual situation, would have been a capital mistake, but to do this with wounded men would have been an act of folly.  The boat had tourniquets and other similar appliances in it, and he directed some of the French to use them on those that wanted them most.  He also supplied the parched lips of the sufferers with water; when, conceiving that his duty was performed, he gave an order to haul the boat on one side, and to shove it forcibly out of the line of any coming conflict.

“Halloo, Captain Rule!” called out Ithuel, “you are wrong there.  Let the boat lie where it is, and it will answer a better turn than another breastwork.  The English will scarcely fire through their own wounded.”

The look that Raoul cast toward his auxiliary was fierce—­even indignant; but, disregarding the advice, he motioned for his own men to obey the order he had already given them.  Then, as if mindful of Ithuel’s importance, his late timely succor, and the necessity of not offending him, he walked to the side of the islet nearest to the felucca, and spoke courteously and cheerfully to him whose advice he had just treated with indifference, if not with disdain.  This was not hypocrisy, but a prudent adaptation of his means to his circumstances.

“Bon, brave Etooelle,” he said, “your bags of bullets were welcome friends, and they arrived at the right moment.”

“Why, Captain Rule, in the Granite country we are never wasteful of our means.  You can always wait for the white of Englishmen’s eyes in these affairs.  They’re spiteful devils, on the whull, and seem to be near-sighted to a man.  They came so clus’ at Bunker Hill, our folks—­”

“Bon,” repeated Raoul, feeling no wish to hear a thrice-told tale gone through again, Bunker Hill invariably placing Ithuel on a great horse in the way of bragging; for he not only imagined that great victory a New England triumph, as in fact it was, but he was much disposed to encourage the opinion that it was in a great measure “granite.” “Bon,” interrupted Raoul—­“Bunkair was good;—­mais, les Roches aux Sirens is bettair.  If you have more_ de ces bulles_ load encore.

“What think you of this, Captain Rule?” asked the other, pointing up at a little vane that began to flutter at the head of one of his masts.  “Here is the west wind, and an opportunity offers to be off.  Let us take wit, and run!”

Raoul started, and gazed at the heavens, the vane, and the surface of the sea; the latter beginning to show a slightly ruffled surf ace.  Then his eye wandered toward Ghita.  The girl had risen from her knees, and her eyes followed his every movement.  When they met his, with a sweet, imploring smile, she pointed upward, as if beseeching him to pay the debt of gratitude he owed to that dread Being who had as yet borne him unharmed through the fray.  He understood her meaning, kissed his hand in affectionate gallantry, and turned toward Ithuel, to pursue the discourse.