"Oh, God! ... Have mercy on my soul!" echoed Clark.
"Sounds like a Free Methodist prayer-meeting!" remarked Sinclair, with a laugh, in which the rest joined.
"Mother, doesn't Mr. Clark get under the table and whine just like Carlo when father whipped him for keeping company with those nasty Chinese dogs?"
"Hush, Constance! Don't you say another word."
Sinclair reached under the table and began to pull Clark out:
"Come along, Clark! The Lord's going to give you another chance with that soul of yours. Perhaps you will have it in better shape by the time you get the next call."
When a few minutes later a boat from the _Locust_ arrived to take all to the gunboat for greater safety, Clark found his legs with amazing expedition. Indeed, he would have been the first person in the boat if it had not been that Lieutenant Lanyon, who was in command, caught him by the collar and jerked him back on the jetty with the warning:
"Ladies first, sir, or by my faith you don't go at all."
Meanwhile on the exposed hill-top MacKay, his wife and children, and his Chinese converts, who had no souls, remained calm and unmoved amidst the ceaseless whirr and whine of the flying projectiles and the crash of bursting shells.
During the afternoon the French fire slackened. By four o'clock it had died away to scattering shots. The party of refugees had spent most of the forenoon on board the _Locust_, had lunched at Peeatow, and now were back at their morning rendezvous. Some of the men had remained at Peeatow. Clark, the hero of the teak table incident, was not one of them. Evidently believing that a special divinity had been assigned to watch over the ladies, he kept very close to them, so that he might share in that divinity's protection.
Sinclair had spent the day at the hospital, though there was not much to do there. The all-day bombardment had wounded less than a score of Chinamen. But when he visited the rendezvous in the morning he noticed that Miss MacAllister seemed to avoid him. He was not the man to push himself in where he was not wanted, and so stayed away. But they met in the late afternoon. It was she who contrived it.
"Where is Miss MacAllister?" said Mrs. Beauchamp to that young lady's mother. "I have not seen her for some time."