Her mouth fell open: "Who, me? Tell the—?" She swept the strategist with a quick, hurt glance, but beamed again beneath his kind eyes. "I get your idea," she said, snatched the nurse's arm, and hurried off with her, humming and tripping the song she had quoted.
The captain looked again into "infinite space." The wide scene was shifting. High beyond the Votaress's bow the stars of the west swung as if they shifted southward. The moon crossed her silvering wake from larboard quarter to starboard. The Antelope shone close ahead. "To me, Hugh," he lightly resumed, "this boat, full of all sorts of people, isn't so much like your swarm of stars as it is like just one little whole world."
"Yes," said the son, facing him sidewise so that no Ramsey might again surprise them: "I see it that way too. Father"—the father had stirred as if to leave him—"I want to tell you some things about our past. But I can't tell them piecemeal. I must find some time when you're off watch."
"And when Miss Ramsey's asleep?"
"Yes."
"Why have you never told me before?"
"I've tried for years. The power wasn't in me. I've had to grow up to it. But, as you say, 'now, at last,' I can do it."
The captain turned away and looked up to the dim pilot-house. Out of it came the tranquil voice of the pilot who earlier had talked with the twins: "Caving bank above has planted snags at that wood-yard, sir. Whippoorwill Ferry's a better landing, on t'other side, head o' the crossing."
"Well, Mr. Watson, land there."
The boat was sweeping close by the west-shore village of Bayagoula, that lay asleep where the stream for a brief space widened to a mile. Her veering jack-staff hid the north star a moment, then crept to right of it and pointed up a five-mile reach of dim waters and dimmer shores, hard on the heels of the panting Antelope. But the captain's eye lingered behind and above him. Between him and the pilot-house, softly veiled by its moonlight shadow, stood in unconscious statuesqueness on the front overhang of the texas roof, between the towering chimneys, Ramsey.