"'He isn't half white, is he?' says I.
"Tell you the truth, that fellow never understood me, and thought the whole voyage out to Singapore that I had been lying to him."
After our frugal meal was finished, the Skipper led the way to the boat. Cynthia was very pale during the trip, and I felt once or twice as if it were my duty to forbid the banns. As bridegroom, I was not allowed to pull, and the Skipper, who had made his toilet by washing his face and running his fingers through his hair in preparation for his duties as clergyman, was not allowed to soil his hands on the oars, so that we were some time in getting out to the wreck. The Bo's'n had to row the whole dead weight. I can see the boat now, the Skipper and Cynthia seated in the stern, Lacelle on the seat athwart ships, close to them, the Bo's'n pulling steadily at his oars, and I perched high up in the bow, feeling like a little boy at a picnic.
It was quite a long row out to the wreck, and we were a very quiet party. The Skipper seemed to be mumbling the marriage service over to himself. The evening was calm and still. The oars dipped gently in the water, and made blue and pink ripples, the only disturbing feature of the scene except, perhaps, the marriage. Sweet odours came off from the shore, wafted how, I know not, for there was no breeze stirring. The moon was just rising, even before the sun had set, and her pale band ran undulating over the tiny wavelets that we made, and formed oblongs of silver and rose alternately.
Finally we arrived at the wreck. I saw the Skipper's mouth working as he surveyed what had been his taut little vessel. No one spoke. It seemed more like a funeral than a wedding. The Skipper was the first to step upon the charred deck.
He stood there and waved his hand comprehensively in a circle, which included all that was left of the Yankee Blade.
"Here," said the Skipper, with a twitching of the lip, "lies the sarcophagus of all my hopes."
"It ain't a reel cheerful weddin', Mr. Jones, sir, now is it, sir?" remarked the Bo's'n in a whisper. "Seein' as I ain't dressed, I think I'll send my regrets. Somebody's got to be boatkeeper."
"Don't let your wardrobe trouble you," urged I. "I've got it in my pocket," and I handed the Bo's'n his neckerchief.
A strange look overspread the features of the Bo's'n. If I had not been certain that my action ought to have provoked him, I should have said that he was pleased. But perhaps it was only at getting his neckerchief back again. At all events, he washed his hands, put on his neckerchief, took the painter in his fingers, and leaped on the deck.