She was in a small puffing craft of sable blackness; her light gown was in damaging proximity to the lumps of coal, yet she was blissfully happy. For she was gliding swiftly and surely over the broad, black bosom of the river toward the bright white light hung up in the masts of the Merrimac.
A few minutes, and she was in the shadow of the huge bulk. Then her hands and feet nimbly laid hold on the wooden steps, and some one was helping her to clamber to the deck.
She looked up and saw the quartermaster. She gave him a gay “Good evening,” that he was too startled to return; then, mentioning her name, she requested him to pay and dismiss the men on the tender.
She sauntered along the deck to the chart-room. Opening the door, she found it empty. “Ah! I thought he would be here,” she murmured; “but no matter—he must be somewhere. It is late, perhaps he is having supper.”
There was a book on navigation lying open on the table, and she turned over a few pages. What queer language—how clever he must be to understand it! “Man the spanker brails and weather vang and sheet; hands by the outhaul, brace in the cross-jack yards, ease away the outhaul. Brail up, hauling in the lee brails best, so as to spill the sail as quickly as possible, then haul up the weather brails, pass the foot gaskets, steady the gaff, crutch the boom, and stow the sail.”
She smiled wearily, closed the book, and descended to the deck. What a glorious night it was! There was no moon, but there were stars, legions of them, flashing down on the lesser lights of earth. It was getting late, yet there was still a murmur of traffic in the two great towns stretched out on either side of them, although out here on the river it was very quiet.
A puff of smoke in her face drew her attention to the tender. It was just putting off, and she watched it for a few minutes. Swiftly, unerringly, the little black craft glided between the shipping, avoiding alike the leviathans of the deep and the tiniest cockle-shells afloat. Then its light was lost among the other myriad lights, and she turned away, and dived down the first opening she came to.
How quiet the ship was! Only a few sailors in the distance who stared at her as if she had been a ghost. She almost lost herself in a strange alley-way that brought her to the now silent engine-room. Emerging from it, she got into a passage running half the length of the ship, and that she knew would lead her to the dining-saloon.
Just as her hand was on the door, a roar of laughter saluted her ears. She opened it a very little and peered cautiously in.
The ship’s officers were seated at an end of one of the long dining-tables, having their supper and an uncommonly good joke, she should imagine, judging by their faces. Their knives and forks were laid down, and they were laughing, not like landsmen, but like sailors with strong and hearty lungs. Loud, explosive guffaws testified to the richness of the joke, and Nina wondered what it was. And ’Steban was as bad as the rest of them, lying back in his chair, his hands on his sides. She never had seen him laugh in that way before.