The motor launch was waiting for them when they reached the landing. A sailor in white duck, with the name Hippocampus in gold letters on his cap, stood on the little dock, and the Admiral assisted them on board.
“’Deed, Marse Bob,” Aunty Welcome protested, as she hesitated to take the step into the launch. “’Deed, I know I’ll swamp you, I know it. I don’t trust dat lil toy boat no more’n I would a tea tray. Nevah see sech a shiny lil baby boat in mah life. Well, for mercy sakes, if I ain’t in it all safe.”
And she laughed till Polly warned her she would surely burst the equator, as she settled down in the stern of the little launch, and they left the landing for the open river.
The girls said very little. With flushed cheeks, and eager, sparkling eyes they were too much engaged in watching all the new sights that unfolded as the launch sped along. On one side were the hills of Virginia, gray green in the morning light like grass with the dew on it. Dense patches of wild rice glimmered through the morning haze to the left. About a mile down the river lay the Hippocampus, spotless and silent, like a water lily on the river’s surface. None of the girls had ever been on a steam yacht before. They watched this one with eager interest as they drew nearer and nearer to it. Everything on board was quiet. A gaily striped awning was spread up forward. The pennon of the Chesapeake Yacht Club, of which the Senator was a member, fluttered lightly from the mast head, in the gentle breeze. As the launch came alongside, the Senator himself, in white flannels, appeared on deck, and greeted them warmly.
“I thought you always had to climb a ladder of rope, when you went over a ship’s side,” whispered Sue to Polly, as she saw the neat gangway of steps that led easily from the launch to the deck of the yacht. “This is much better, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” smiled back Polly, holding to her cap, as the wind blew freshly up the river from the bay. “Did you notice the figure-head?”
It was turned fairly to them, so they had a good view of the prow with its figure-head, a great golden sea-horse, curving proudly up from the waves.
“But its head looks like a dragon’s instead of a horse’s. I wonder how they travel through the water?” asked Ted.
“Just as easily as a jelly fish,” laughed Polly. “They don’t seem to help themselves at all, just go along with their heads held up high, as if they thought they owned the whole ocean. And they are such tiny things, that it seems comical. Think if a sea horse and a sea cow were to get into a quarrel. A sea cow could eat a peck of sea horses at one gulp, and then ask for some dessert.” And Polly added on the spur of the moment:
“Whenever you see