The messenger drew away from the gangway, and entered into a conversation with the driver of the omnibus. Stump nodded to a man on the quay. The forward mooring rope was cleared, and fell into the water with a loud splash. Two sailors ran the gangway on board. An electric bell jarred in the engine-room, and the screw revolved, while the rattle of the steering chains showed that the helm was put hard a-port. When the Aphrodite moved slowly astern, her bow swung towards the mouth of the dock. The indicator rang again, twice, and the yacht, after a pause, began to forge ahead. Another splash, and the second hawser was cast loose. The mole, the neighboring ships, the landward quays and the warehouses thereon, seemed to diminish in size without any perceptible cause, and, in a space of time that might have been measured by seconds rather than minutes, the Aphrodite was throbbing southward.
Mrs. Haxton, whose eagerness to inspect her stateroom had gone, was hailed pleasantly by Irene.
"Now, because I asked you to wait, you shall have first choice," she said, "Lead on, Mr. Royson. Let us see our dens."
But Baron von Kerber came running along the deck, all smiles and welcoming words, and it was evident that some reason other than physical unfitness had kept him out of sight until the yacht's voyage was actually commenced. Dick heard him explaining coolly that he had met with a slight accident on arriving at Marseilles overnight. Some difficulty in dressing, he said, combined with the phenomenal punctuality of the train de luxe, accounted for his tardy appearance, but the ladies would find that the steward had everything in readiness, and Mr. Fenshawe was too experienced a voyageur not to make himself at home instantly. Rattling on thus agreeably, he led the way aft.
In the midst of his explanations, he saw that Dick was accompanying the party, and told him, rather abruptly, that his services were not required. In no amiable mood, therefore, the second officer went to the upper deck, where the skipper was growling his views to Tagg about the mysterious incident of the telegram. It was a moment of tension, and something might have been said that would tend to place Royson and the captain at arm's length if the Aphrodite had not taken it into her head to emulate Miss Fenshawe's action by coming to Dick's assistance. The little vessel remembered that which Stump paid small heed to, and asserted herself.
Notwithstanding her half-deck saloon, with the tiny chart-house perched thereon, and the narrow bridge that gave her a steamer-like aspect, she was rigged as a topsail schooner, her sharp lines and consequent extra length affording full play to her fore-and-aft sails. Her first owner had designed her with set purpose. It was his hobby to remain in out-of-the-way parts of the world for years at a time, visiting savage lands where coal was not procurable, and he trusted more to sails than to engine-power. But Stump, and his chief officer, and nearly every sailor on board, being accustomed to steam, despised windjammers, and pinned their faith to the engines.
With a favorable wind such as was blowing at the moment, or to steady the yacht in a cross sea, the captain would have set a foresail and jib. To help the propeller was good seamanship, but to bank the engine-room fires and depend wholly on sails was the last thing he would think of. Hence, the Aphrodite straightway taught him a sharp lesson. While Stump was ruminating on the exact, form of some scathing remark for Royson's benefit, a sudden stoppage of the screw, and an ominously easy roll over the crest of the next sea, showed that the engines were idle.
Stump hurled a lurid question down the speaking-tube. The engineer's equally emphatic reply told him that there was a breakdown, cause not stated. Now, the outer roadstead of Marseilles harbor is one of the most awkward places in the Mediterranean for a disabled vessel. Though the Gulf of Lions is almost tideless, it has strong and treacherous currents. The configuration of the rocky coast, guarded as it is by small islands and sunken reefs, does not allow much seaway until a lighthouse, some miles distant from the mainland, is passed. Stump, of course, would have made use of the ship's sails before she drifted into peril. But he was purple with wrath, and the necessary commands were not familiar to his tongue.
Therefore, he hesitated, though he was far from remaining silent, and Royson, never at a loss when rapidity of thought and action was demanded, took the lead. He woke up the crew with a string of orders, rushed from foremast to mainmast and back to the bows again to see that the men hauled the right ropes and set the sails in the right way, and, had the Aphrodite bowling along under canvas in less than two minutes after the stopping of the screw. Not until every sheet was drawing and the yacht running free did it occur to him that he had dared to assume unto himself the captain's prerogative.
Rather red-faced and breathless, not only from his own exertions but by reason of the disconcerting notion which possessed him, he raced up the short companion-ladder leading from the fore deck to the bridge. Stump seemed to be awaiting him with a halter.