“Ay-ly-chy-ly
Ah-ha-aah!”

To the listeners, huddled in silence, the familiar cry became a long, monotonous accompaniment to sad thoughts.  Through the rhythm, presently, broke a sound of small-arms,—­a few shots, quick but softened by distance, from far inland.  The stillness of evening followed.

The captain stirred, listened, dropped his head, and sat like stone.  To Rudolph, near him, the brief disturbance called up another evening—­his first on this same river, when from the grassy brink, above, he had first heard of his friend.  Now, at the same place, and by the same light, they had heard the last.  It was intolerable:  he turned his back on the captain.  Inside, in the gloom of the painted cabin, the padre’s wife began suddenly to cry.  After a time, the deep voice of her husband, speaking very low, and to her alone, became dimly audible:—­

“’All this is come upon us; yet have we not—­Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined—­Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.’”

The little captain groaned, and rolled aside from the doorway.

“All very fine,” he muttered, his head wrapped in his arms.  “But that’s no good to me.  I can’t stand it.”

Whether she heard him, or by chance, Miss Drake came quietly from within, and found a place between him and the gunwale.  He did not rouse; she neither glanced nor spoke, but leaned against the ribs of smooth-worn fir, as though calmly waiting.

When at last he looked up, to see her face and posture, he gave an angry start.

“And I thought,” he blurted, “be ’anged if sometimes I didn’t think you liked him!”

Her dark eyes met the captain’s with a great and steadfast clearness.

“No,” she whispered; “it was more than that.”

The captain sat bolt upright, but no longer in condemnation.  For a long time he watched her, marveling; and when finally he spoke, his sharp, domineering voice was lowered, almost gentle.

“Always talked too much,” he said.  “Don’t mind me, my dear.  I never meant—­Don’t ye mind a rough old beggar, that don’t know that hasn’t one thing more between him and the grave.  Not a thing—­but money.  And that, now—­I wish’t was at the bottom o’ this bloomin’ river!”

They said no more, but rested side by side, like old friends joined closer by new grief.  Flounce, the terrier, snuffing disconsolately about the deck, and scratching the boards in her zeal to explore the shallow hold, at last grew weary, and came to snuggle down between the two silent companions.  Not till then did the girl turn aside her face, as though studying the shore, which now melted in a soft, half-liquid band as black as coal-tar, above the luminous indigo of the river.

Suddenly Rudolph got upon his feet, and craning outboard from gunwale and thatched eaves, looked steadily forward into the dusk.  A chatter of angry voices came stealing up, in the pauses of the wind.  He watched and listened, then quickly drew in his head.