Then both started as though the underlying significance of the question and answer had suddenly dawned upon them. Gently she withdrew her hands, which Dan did not seek to retain. In conversational tone, he said:
"I am awfully sorry, Virginia. While you were sleeping, the wind fell, an hour or two after dawn, and the blue of the water struck me. I found the Captain's thermometer and lowered it overboard. My best hopes were realized. We are in the Gulf Stream, Virginia, and moving northward at about four miles an hour. We are all right now if all goes well."
"But why were you hiding?" asked the girl.
"I wasn't. I wanted to see if the water had hurt the logwood, so as to impair its value, and to learn the condition of the hull. You know the cargo is all that is keeping us afloat. Everything is pretty soggy down there, but we'll hold together, I guess; and I don't believe the logwood will suffer a bit. Of course the mahogany is all right. We're lucky. One schooner in a million has mahogany these days."
She had been gazing at him almost vacantly while he was talking. Now she smiled beautifully.
"Oh, I am so glad to see you again," she said. "It seems almost as if you had been away a thousand years."
"That," said Dan, "almost pays me for frightening you. Are you ready for breakfast? I knocked it together a while ago."
"For which you shall be punished—when we get ashore."