She started as Grahame came in. Salt water dripped from him and gathered in a pool on the floor, but he turned to them with a smile.
"The wind is dropping fast, and the sea hadn't time to get up. We had some trouble at first when the awning blew out of its lashings and stopped her coming round, but she steered all right as soon as we got her before the sea."
"We were on deck most of the time," Evelyn said.
Grahame laughed as he recalled their conversation in the early evening.
"After what you must have seen," he asked, "don't you agree that there are advantages in keeping in smooth water?"
"Oh, one can't deny it. For all that, my experience to-night strengthens my belief that there's something very exhilarating in taking a risk."
She went out on deck and stood for a minute or two, holding on by a shroud. There was now no fury in the wind, and the moon was bright. The swell had gathered itself up into tumbling combers that shook their crests about the rail as the Enchantress lurched over them. A few torn clouds drove across the southern sky, but the rest of the wide sweep was clear and the scene was steeped in harmonies of silver and dusky blue. By daybreak the vessel would be steaming on an even keel, but Evelyn knew that she would not again be content with glassy calm and languorous tranquillity. The turmoil of the storm had made a subtle change in her; it was as if she had heard a call in the elemental clamor and her heart had answered.
CHAPTER XVI
THE RUSE
Cliffe and his daughter were landed at Kingston, and three weeks later Grahame put into a Central-American port. The propeller was not running well, and Macallister, suspecting it was working loose on the shaft, declared that he must put the vessel on a beach where she would dry at low-water. Grahame had a few days to spare, for he could not land his cargo before the time Don Martin had fixed; but as the arms were on board he would have preferred to wait at sea, outside the regular steamers' track.