'Well,' Readyman exclaimed, in unfeigned delight, 'I never saw her equal. Ain't she a beauty, Master Jack?'
'Indeed she is,' Jack replied.
'Look at the handsome lines and the sheer,' the quarter-master added. 'There isn't a yacht afloat could come near her in the matter of sailing.'
'We saw nothing of her while ashore,' Jack replied.
The cause of their outspoken admiration was a long, low freeboard vessel of about thirty tons measurement, the polished sides gleaming in the level rays of the setting sun, while curling foam spread wide from the sharp cut-water.
Along each side about twenty brown-skinned men propelled her rapidly toward the barque; their diamond-shaped paddles glittered like silver as they rose and fell to the beat of tom-tom and a monotonous drone of voices.
In the centre the chief and Kalli Lal sat beneath a silken canopy, and were duly received by the 'guard of honour' drawn up for their reception across the quarter-deck of the 'Alert.'
As the chief stepped on board he turned towards his host.
'Are your men good shots?' he inquired.
'Walker,' the old man exclaimed, 'face for'a'd, and hit the shark's fin nailed on the jib-boom end.'