“Don’t you want any assistance?” he inquired.
“No, thanks, unless you will allow me to use your gangway in order to climb aboard the dinghy.”
“By all means. I am sorry the oar caught you. But you annexed the prize, so I suppose you are satisfied. What was it?”
“A calabash, I fancy. You will see it lying in the boat.”
Peter, who was really fascinated by the carved face which drew the girl’s attention in the first instance, suddenly kicked it and turned it upside down with his wooden leg. The men in the second boat saw only the glazed yellow rind of an oval gourd, some twelve inches long and eight or nine in diameter.
“The pot was hardly worth the scurry,” laughed one of them.
“If Greeks once strove for a crown of wild olive, why not Englishmen for a calabash?” said Warden.
There was an element of the ludicrous in the unexpected comment from a man in his predicament. Every true–born Briton resents any remark that he does not quite understand, and some among the strangers grinned. The girl, still holding Warden’s wrist as though she feared he would vanish in the depths if she let go, darted a scornful look at them.
“The truth is that these gentlemen competed because they thought they were sure to win,” she cried.
“It was a fair race, madam,” expostulated the leader of the yacht’s boat.