On the port side, when you touched a knob, a mirrored door opened into the captain’s cabin—small but pretty, and lighted by an airy port that could be carried open in good weather, and all along in the trades.
The other state-room was larger. This Halcott had insisted upon Tandy taking; and it contained not only his own bunk, but a lower one for Nelda, and was better decorated and furnished than even the captain’s.
“Oh, gaily goes the ship when the wind blows free.”
And right gaily she had gone too, as yet.
Halcott was a splendid sailor and navigator. It might have been thought, however, that Tandy, from his long residence on shore, had turned a little rusty in his seamanship.
If he had, the rust had not taken long to rub off; and as he trod the ivory-white quarterdeck in his duck trousers, neat cap, and jacket of navy blue, he really looked ten years younger than in the days when he sailed the Merry Maiden up and down the canal.
The crew were well-dressed, and looked happy and jolly enough for anything.
I need hardly say that Nelda was the pet of the Sea Flower, fore and aft. There was no keeping the child to any one part of the ship. In fine weather—and, with the exception of a “howther” in the Bay, it had up till now been mostly fine—she was here, there, and everywhere: in the men’s quarters; down below in the forecastle; at the forecastle-head itself, when the men leaned over the bows there, smoking, yarning, and laughing; and in the cook’s galley, helping to make the soup. But she ventured even further than this, and more than once her father started to find her in the foretop, and standing beside her that tall, imperturbable Admiral.
The bird was pet number two; but Bob made an equal second.
At first the ’Ral was inclined to mope. Perhaps he was sea-sick. It is a well-known fact that if a Cape pigeon, as a certain gull is called, is taken on board, it can fly no more, but walks slowly and stupidly round the deck.