"I do not mean the chickens on board, but the chickens that fly around us--Mother Cary's chickens," said the captain, trying hard to smother down a laugh. "Don't you know that they all belong to the sailors; and that whoever troubles them is sure to bring trouble on the ship?"
"No, sir," Frank persisted, evidently convinced that the captain was trying to tease him. "I did not know that they belonged to anybody. I thought that they were all wild."
Mary, however, looked guilty. She knew well the sailor's superstition about the "chickens," but having had at that time nothing to do, she had been urged on by an irrepressible desire for fun, and until this moment had imagined that her fishing was unnoticed. She timidly answered,
"I did not catch it, sir; I only tangled it in the thread, and it got away before I touched it."
"Well, Tom," said the captain to the sailor, who seemed to be in doubt after Frank's defence whether to appear pleased or angry, "I think you will have to forgive the offence this time, especially as the sharks took it in hand so soon to revenge the insult, and ran away with the little fellow's handkerchief."
Old Tom smiled grimly at the allusion to the shark; for he had been sitting quietly in the jolly boat picking rope, and had witnessed the whole adventure.
The wind, which had continued favourable ever since they left Charleston, now gradually died away. The boatswain whistled often and shrilly to bring it back; but it was like "calling spirits from the vasty deep." The sails hung listlessly down, and moved only as the vessel rocked sluggishly upon the scarce undulating surface. The only circumstance which enlivened this scene was the appearance of a nautilus, or Portuguese man-of-war. Mary was the first to discern it. She fancied that it was a tiny toy boat, launched by some child on shore, and wafted by the wind to this distant point. It was certainly a toy vessel, though one of nature's workmanship; for there was the floating body corresponding to the hull, there the living passenger, there the sails spread or furled at will, and there the oars (Mary could see them move) by which the little adventurer paddled itself along.
The young people were very anxious to obtain it. Frank went first to old Tom Starboard (as the sailor was called who had scolded him and Mary, but who was now on excellent terms with both) to ask whether they might have the nautilus if they could catch it.
"Have the man-o'-war!" ejaculated the old man, opening wide his eyes, "who ever heered of sich a thing? O yes, have it, if you can get it; but how will you do that?"
"Brother Robert and cousin Harold will row after it and pick it up, if the captain will let them have his boat."