him to----I beg your pardon,
I did not see that the young lady had joined us."

But Mary was there, fresh as a rose dipped in dew, and as Roderick
followed her up the companion ladder, we held a consultation, the fifth
since we left Calais.

"It's my opinion," said Roderick, "that if those men of yours had not
been ashore on leave, York, and we could have sailed at midnight, we
should have done the business and been in Paris again by this time."

"It's my opinion, sir, that your opinion is not worth a cockroach,"
cried the captain quite testily; "the men have nothing to do with it.
Look above; if you'll show me how to move this ship without a hatful of
wind, I'll do it, sir," and he strutted off to breakfast, leaving us
with Dan, the forward look-out.

Dan was a grand old seaman, and there wasn't one of us who didn't
appeal to him in our difficulties.

"Do you think it means to blow, Dan?" I asked, as I offered him my
tobacco-pouch: and Mary said earnestly--

"Oh, Daniel, I do wish a gale would come on!"

"Ay, Miss, and so do many of us; but we can't be making wind no more'n
we can make wittals--and excusing me, Miss, it ain't Daniel, not
meaning no disrespect to the other gent, whose papers were all right, I
don't doubt, but my mother warn't easy in larning, and maybe didn't
know of him--it's Dan, Miss, free-and-easy like, but nat'ral."

"Well, Dan, do you think it will blow? Can't you promise it will blow?"

"Lor, Miss, I'd promise ye anything; but what is nater is nater, and
there's an end on it--not as I don't say there won't be a hatful o'
wind afore night--why should I? but as for promisin' of it, why I'd
give ye a hurricane willing--or two."

We went down to breakfast, the red of sea strength on our cheeks; and
in the cosy saloon we made short work of the coffee and soles, the
great heaps of toast, and the fresh fruit. I could not help some gloomy
thoughts as I found myself on my own schooner again, asking how long
she would be mine, and how I should suffer the loss of her when all my
money was spent. These were cast off in the excitement of the chase,
and came only in the moments of absolute calm, when all the men aboard
fretted and fumed, and every other question was: "Isn't it beginning to
blow?"

The morning passed in this way, a long morning, with the sea like a
mirror, and the sun as a great circle of red fire in the haze. Hour
after hour we walked from the fore-hatch to the tiller, from the t