the breakfast table with that ravishing dimple
coming and going as she smiled at him.

"How do you like your coffee?" she asked him, her slender fingers
hovering over the cream jug and the sugar tongs.

"Two lumps of cream and plenty of sugar," he responded.

She laughed mischievously.

"We always try to please," she said; "but really our cream doesn't come
in lumps."

He reddened.

"I surely did get that twisted," he said a little sheepishly. "Suppose
we put it the other way around."

"I guess your mind was far away," she jested. "You must have been
thinking of the treasure."

"That's exactly right," he returned, looking into her eyes as he took
the cup she handed him. "I was thinking of the treasure."

CHAPTER XIV

BEGINNING THE VOYAGE

Ruth bent a little lower over her coffee urn to hide the additional
flush that had come into her cheeks, and after that she guided the
conversation to safer ground and took care to leave no opening for
Drew's audacity.

The meal over, all went on deck. The captain took charge and sent
Ditty and Rogers, the second officer, below to get breakfast. The crew
had already breakfasted.

Tyke had been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton and
placed in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes could
delight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussed
around him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, until
the veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before the voyage was
over.

They had passed the Battery by this time, and were moving sluggishly
with the tide. Behind them stretched the vast metropolis, with its
wonderful sky-line sharply outlined by the bright rays of the morning
sun. The Goddess of Liberty held her torch aloft as though to guide
them in their venture. At the right the hills of Staten Island smiled
in their vernal beauty, while at the left, white stretches of gleaming
beach indicated the pleasure resorts where the people of the teeming
city came to play.

Ditty had come on deck again. Unpleasant though his countenance was,
and as suspicious as Drew was of him, it was plain that the mate of the
_Bertha Hamilton_ was a good seaman.

He looked now at Captain Hamilton for permission to make sail. The
latter signed to him to go ahead. Useless to pay towage with a
favoring wind and flowing tide.

Ditty bawled to the crew:

"Break her out, bullies! H'ist away tops'ls!"

The haly