as a good compass, a cool hand at the wheel,
and an honest desire to cross the fiftieth meridian in latitude 40 deg.
30' could make it. All the way from Sandy Hook Light-ship the stanch ship
had leaned to a soldier's wind till the mid-watch of this day, and even
now, under shortened canvas and with weather clews a-tremble, she was
making eight knots an hour on her great circle track. The wind boomed
out of the arching, creamy hollows of the two topsails, and hummed
through the tense shrouds and back-stays.

Out forward the sweeping curve of the clipper bow swung swiftly upward,
with bobstay and martingale dripping with sparkling brine, and again
plunged down with a thunderous roar and a boiling of milk-white foam up
to the hawse-holes. Ever and anon a hissing shower of iridescent spray
would hurtle across the forecastle deck, and lose itself in the smother
of yeasty froth that blew along the lee rail.

Up to windward the sea hardened itself against the luminous horizon in a
steel-blue field of cotton-tufted ridges, leaping and falling in wide
unrest. Overhead sheets of wreathing vapor rushed across the dense blue
sky, and in and out of the rifts the dazzling white sun shot wildly as
if in meteoric flight. Captain Elias Joyce leaned against the weather
rail of his poop deck, and looked contented.

"It'll blow harder before it blows easier, Mr. Bolles," he said to his
mate, "but it'll go to the south'ard."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the mate. "And I reckon we'll do very well as we
are."

"Yes, let well enough alone," said the Captain. "Come, gentlemen, let's
go to dinner."

The gentlemen were Joseph and Henry Brownson, the twin sons of the owner
of the ship. They were making this voyage on a sailing-ship for health
and recreation after a hard struggle with their final examinations at
college. They were well used to the sea, and had served an
apprenticeship in many a hearty dash around Brentons Reef Light-ship and
the Block Island buoy. They were enjoying every minute of their voyage,
but they had yet one great desire to gratify. They wished to get the
Captain to spin them a yarn of some strange experience at sea. Up to the
present time he had refused to accept their hints. But they had not yet
abandoned hope. At the dinner table they renewed the attack, but without
result. When the meal was ended, the Captain filled a pipe, and the
conversation drifted in various channels. Henry spoke of college
celebrations and the foo