O'Grady smiled pleasantly, and said it was useless to argue with so obstinate a man.
"I am afraid O'Grady is wrong as usual," Dick Ryan said to Terence, who was sitting next to him. "When once he has taken an idea into his head nothing will persuade him that he is wrong; there is no doubt the Sea-horse is as slow as she can be. I suppose her owners have some interest with the government, or they would surely never have taken up such an old tub as a troop-ship."
CHAPTER II
TWO DANGERS
The next day, in spite of the sail she carried, the Sea-horse lagged behind, and one of the frigates sailed back to her, and the captain shouted angry orders to the master to keep his place in the convoy.
"If we get any wind," O'Grady said, as the frigate bore up on her course again, "it will take all your time to keep up with her, my fine fellow. You see," he explained to Terence, "no vessel is perfect in all points; some like a good deal of wind, some are best in a calm. Now this ship wants wind."
"I think she does, Captain O'Grady," Terence replied, gravely. "At any rate her strong point is not sailing in a light wind."
"No," O'Grady admitted, regretfully; "but it is not the ship's fault. I have no doubt at all that her bottom is foul, and that she has a lot of barnacles and weeds twice as long as your body. That is the reason why she is a little sluggish."
"That may be it," Terence agreed; "but I should have thought that they would have seen to that before they sent her to Cork."
"It is like enough that her owners are well-wishers of Napoleon, Terence, and that it is out of spite that they have done it. There is no doubt that she is a wonderful craft."