's quip had saved the situation. He attributed her flushed cheeks
and sparkling eyes to the fever of the threatened fight.

She applied herself eagerly to the task. Already the fume and agony of
vain regret were striving to conquer the ecstasy which had flooded her
whole being. She remembered that passionate longing to be clasped in
Courtenay's arms which she experienced when she saw him in the canoe,
and now, after draining to the dregs the cup of bitterness she had
forced on herself during these later days, here she was, ready as ever
to quaff the love potion. Poor Elsie! She longed for the waters of
Lethe; haply they are denied to young women with live blood in their
veins.

Courtenay, meanwhile, was examining the advancing flotilla. His brain
was conning each detail of the Alaculof array, but his heart was
whispering gladly:

"In another moment you would have kissed her and told her you loved
her. You know you would, so don't deny it! Ah! kissed her, and held
her to your breast!"

So Suarez spoiled a pretty bit of romance by his ruffling agitation
over some bawl of savage frenzy, for Courtenay, of course, would have
laughed away the girl's protests that she was usurping another woman's
place. It was really a pity that the man from Argentina had not found
something else to occupy his mind at that precise juncture in the
affairs of two young people who were obviously mated by the
discriminating gods. A good deal of suffering and heartburning would
then have been avoided; but perhaps it was just the whim of fate that
the captain's love affair should follow the irregular course mapped out
for his ship, and the _Kansas_ was not yet re-launched on the ocean
high-road to London, no, not by any manner of means.

In fact, if the confident demeanor of the paddling warriors in the
canoes were destined to be justified, the big steamer was in parlous
state. Her vast bulk and sheer walls of steel did not daunt them.
They came on steadily against the rapid current, and spread out into a
crescent when within a few hundred yards of the ship. Then three men,
crouching in the bows of different canoes, produced rifles hitherto
invisible and began to shoot. The bullets ricochetted across the
ripples, and Courtenay saw that the savages did not understand the
sighting appliances. They were aiming point-blank at the vessel, in so
far as they could be said to aim at anything, and the low trajectory
caused the first strai