Chapter Thirty One.
On the Good Yacht “Magdalena”—“The very Seas used to sing to us”—The Home-Coming—The End.
At sea once more.
At sea in one of the smartest yachts that ever walked the waters like a thing of life.
At sea, and homeward bound. Ah! that was what sent the joyful flush to our cheeks and the glad glitter to our eyes, whenever we chose to think of the fact, and try to realise it.
The Magdalena in which we were sailing was no racer, but a splendid sea craft, and one that, as Ritchie said, could have shown a pair of clean heels to the best tea-ship in the merchant service. And that was saying a deal. She was broad in the beam for a yacht, but consequently safe and comfortable. Her masts were tall, but they were also strong, and she carried such a cloud of canvas that, seen from a distance, she must have looked a perfect albatross.
To say that her decks were as white as snow would be to talk figuratively, but literally they were as white as cocoanut husk and holystone could make them. The sails were really like snow in the sunshine, and there was not a bit of polished wood about her decks, whether in binnacle or capstan, that did not look as if varnished; nor a morsel of brass or copper that did not shine.
There was an awning over the quarter-deck by day, for we were in the tropics, and the sun blazed down with a heat sufficient to soften the pitch, if it did not absolutely make it boil.
Yonder, under the awning, sits Castizo, in a light coat and straw hat, quietly reading a book. Jill and I are walking rapidly up and down the deck, and Dulzura is standing beside Peter. Both are gazing down at the bubbling green water, that goes eddying along the good ship’s sides. Yet I do not think that either Dulzura or he is thinking very much about it.
But why, it may be reasonably asked, are we homeward bound, instead of bearing up for Castizo’s place at Valparaiso? Ah! thereby hangs a tale. And I will endeavour to tell it as it was told to us, on the very last night we spent on the Pampa.