the afternoon. Esperance Point rounded and left astern in the
east. Ellis Cliffs there too, whitening back to the western sun. Saint
Catherine's Bend next ahead, gleaming a mile and a quarter wide where it
swung down from the north. And the _Votaress_ herself! Once again that
perfect grace in the faint up-curve, at stem and stern, of the low white
rail that rimmed the deck. Again, above the stained-glass skylights of
the cabin, the long white texas, repeating the deck's and cabin's lines
in what Ramsey called a "higher octave," its narrow doors overhung with
gay scrollwork, and above its own roof, like a coronet, the pilot house,
with Watson just returned to the wheel. Once more the colossal,
hot-breathing twin chimneys, their slender iron braces holding them so
uprightly together and apart, the golden globe--emblem of the Courteney
fleet--hanging between them, and their far-stretched iron guys softly
harping to one another in the breeze. All these again, and away out
beyond the front rail, with a hundred feet depth of empty air between,
the jack-staff, high as a pine and as slim for its height as a cane from
the brake, its halyards whipping cheerily, the black night-hawk at its
middle, a golden arrow at its peak.

John Courteney, coming up into this scene, laid a hand on his solitary
chair at the forward rail but then paused. Between the chair and the
skylights behind it stood the squire's sister and brother-in-law and
Ramsey. Yes, they eagerly agreed with him, the view ahead was certainly
dazzling. Ramsey would have asked a question, but the husband remembered
the contagion from whose field below the captain had just come, the wife
noticed that the presence of ladies would keep the captain standing, and
the three, remarking that such a scene was too brilliant to confront,
moved aft. As they went, Watson, up at the wheel, and Ned, his partner,
lingering by him, had a half-length view of them, their lower half being
hid by the cabin roof, close under whose edge their feet passed, where
its shadow kept the deck cool. The wife still had her embroidery, the
husband his De Bow. By certain changes about Ramsey's throat and
shoulders Ned noticed that she was in yet another dress, whose
skirt--such part as showed above the cabin roof--was in flounces almost
to the waist. He would tell that at home to his wife and daughter, who
now and then depended on him for fashions, with striking results.
Watson, too, noticed Ramsey, yet his