"She once wore a great beak on her stem," said Corkery. "See where it's been sawn away."
"Don John of Austria fought the battle of Lepanto with just such craft," said Anthony, "and before the fight he ordered the ram to be cut from every ship in his fleet, so that they might run close alongside the enemy. But that was two hundred years ago."
"I would not take one day of it from this vessel's age," said Corkery, shaking his head. "Like as not she's one of the stove-in hulks that drifted out of that old fight. But how did she make her way through all the seas and get lodgment here at last?"
"God knows," said Anthony. "And that's an answer that must be made to many a question asked of this strange place."
"Look!" cried Tom Horn.
"Look, oh, look!" cried mademoiselle.
Their voices arose almost together; Anthony and the mate turned, and there, freely riding the scum in an open space, the stumps of her masts showing above the bulwarks, they saw the fine, sound hull of the Rufus Stevens!
XLII
Yes, there she rode, as calmly as though at anchor in the river; the very paint looked new upon her; she was clean and whole and undismayed.