All through the breakfast, Anthony and mademoiselle talked with Tom Horn, and more than one of his peculiar charts came to the table while they sat there; then the two went on deck, leaving the man poring over his figures, his signs, and his curving lines. The morning was sparkling: the west wind pushed boisterously in the sails, and the little schooner leaped ahead. Corkery approached from amidships, at a look from Anthony.
"How does she set into her work?" asked the young man.
"As ably as a craft twice her bulk," said the mate. "This is no narrow spread of sail," with a look up at the strong, weather-stained canvas, "and yet see how steadily she stands under it."
The Roebuck slipped easily up the long sides of the sea, her sharp prow split its crests, and then she'd sleek jauntily down into the vast hollows, flirting the water from her like a duck. The sky was a rare color, with racing clouds upon its breast; the sun lifted higher and higher, and the gleam of the sea grew brighter, throwing back the sky's own blue, the waves thinning to a green and breaking into a sudden, hissing white. The face of mademoiselle was filled with wonder.
"I have never before been to sea in a little ship," she said, "and so I have not known what being at sea means." Her eyes swept the sky and heaving water; she breathed in the wonderful, singing air; her body swayed with the spring of the craft beneath her. "It is glorious!" she said.
Anthony nodded: he did not look at the sea and sky; he looked at her. And he said:
"Yes, it is glorious."
The full west wind held and blew the Roebuck before it all that day; it whistled sharply through the night, and Anthony, whose watch it was on deck stripped the schooner of a part of her sail. The second morning saw the sea running grayer and longer; the sky was steely, and the sun was hidden. This held for twenty-four hours; then the wind hauled around to the east and scraped the sky's gray into mountains of black; the rain and wind lashed about, and the sea leaped to meet them; the schooner, under topsail and jib, was tossed like a chip, but she held stanchly upright and fought her way through, the blow scarcely wetting her decks. At the end of the fourth day out, Anthony, who stood near the helmsman, mademoiselle at his side, saw a blue gleam through the sober sky.
"The sun will shine to-morrow," he said, "and the sea will run down during the night."
"I am almost sorry," she said. "The angry sea is amazing; I'm afraid I shall not like it, smiling, as greatly as I did before."