“There they go, those energetic young persons!” Mr. De Witt observed, a few minutes later, as Blythe and the Englishman walked past, in search of the Captain, whom Mr. Grey had suggested as the next subject for photographic prowess. “Do you suppose that really is Dalton?”
Mr. De Witt spoke with entire disregard of the fact that Mrs. Halliday appeared to be slumbering tranquilly. And indeed an interrupted nap is so easily made good on shipboard that Blythe used sometimes to beg her mother to try and “fall awake” for a minute!
On this occasion, as she walked past with the alleged poet, she remarked: “Even Mr. De Witt can’t keep Mamma awake on shipboard, and she isn’t a bit of a sleepy person on dry land.”
By way of response, Mr. Grey turned to contemplate the line of steamer-chairs, billowy with voluminous wraps, saying: 9 “Doesn’t the deck look like a sea becalmed? See! Those are the waves, too lazy to break!”
“How funny the ocean would look if the waves forgot to turn over!” Blythe exclaimed, glancing across the gently undulating surface of the sea. “I don’t suppose they’ve kept still one single instant in millions of years!”
“Not since the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” her companion returned, with quiet emphasis; and Blythe felt surer than ever that he really was the great poet whom people believed him to be.
A moment later they had stormed the bridge, where they two, of all the ship’s company, were pretty sure of a welcome. They found the Captain standing, with his sextant at his eye, the four gold stripes on his sleeve gleaming gaily in the sunshine. Evidently things were going right, for the visitors and their daring proposal were most graciously received.
The fine old sea-dog stood like a man to be shot at; and as Blythe faced him, 10 kodak in hand, the breeze playing pranks with her hair and blowing her golf-cape straight back from her shoulders, it was all so exhilarating that before she knew it she had turned her little camera upon the supposed Hugh Dalton himself, who made an absurd grimace and told her to “let her go!”
It was always a delightful experience for Blythe to stand on the bridge and watch the ship’s officers at their wonderful work of guiding the great sea-monster across the pathless deep. Here was the brain of the ship, as Mr. Grey had once pointed out, and to-day, when a sailor suddenly appeared above the gangway and, touching his hat, received a curt order,—“That is one of the nerves of the vessel,” her companion said. “It carries the message of the brain to the furthest parts of the body.”
“And I suppose the eyes are up there,” Blythe returned, glancing at the “crow’s nest,” half-way up the great forward mast, where the two lookouts were keeping their steady watch. 11