CHAPTER XXVII
SYDNEY
Hakluyt, despite his appearance, was a very efficient schooner captain, and as day followed day, Floyd's respect for him as a sailor rose more and more. As a man, he disliked him just as much as ever.
It was not an active dislike. His temper never rose against him, for Hakluyt, to give him his due, was perfectly easy to get on with. He neither swore at the hands nor heckled the subordinate officer. On the contrary, he seemed always endeavoring to make himself agreeable, always anxious for smooth water. The dislike that Floyd had for him was instinctive and beyond the reach of reason, but he did not show it outwardly as he would have done had Hakluyt been difficult to get on with.
The Southern Cross was a good deal of a Dutch ship. Hakluyt hailed originally from Amsterdam, and he brought the Dutch flavor with him. He was an eternal cigar smoker, and the food and drink on board were reminiscent of Holland, especially the De Kuyper. There was a certain slackness also, and a go-as-you-please method of doing this foreign to an English ship.
Yet she made good way without taking any risk. The great art of schooner sailing as laid down by Hakluyt was formulated by him as follows: "Carry all the canvas that you can without danger to your sticks."
And this art implied not only good handling of your vessel, but incessant weather watchfulness, at all events in the Pacific, where squalls drop on you out of a perfectly fair sky.
Three weeks brought them to Sydney, and though it was not Floyd's first acquaintance with the harbor which seems to have been made when the gods were making harbors for great fleets that have vanished, it still filled him with the same wonder and admiration and surprise.
They anchored close to McGinnis' wharf, and Floyd on the morning of his arrival found himself a comparatively free man for a few days.