Margaret and he had tried to console themselves with the thought that this was not really their last sight of each other. The liner would be going out in the morning, and then it would be farewell in earnest. But David was a lonesome and melancholy sailor as he went aboard the Roanoke that night. The bos'n found him on duty at the gangway, and took pity on his low spirits.
"It vas hard to lose friends, but it vas worse to have no friends to lose, and all hands on deck, from the old man to his sawed-off leetle cabin-boy knows that you haf been true to your friends and stuck by your colors, boy. It vill do you no harm. I vas getting old, and there is gray in my hair, and I vill never be a ship's officer. But if you does your duty and sticks by your friends you will wear the blue coat mit the brass stripes on the sleeve, and you will be glad you stayed by steam."
"But I always wanted to be the kind of a seaman my father was," confided David, grateful for the cheer of this grizzled shipmate. "And I've just left that kind of a ship-master and a vessel that made me sort of choke all up to look at her."
Next morning came fair and sparkling, with a fresh wind out of the north-west that set the harbor to dancing. The liner's decks were crowded with passengers in holiday mood. From her huge funnels poured clouds of black smoke, to tell the water front that she was eager to be free and hurrying over seas. Promptly on the stroke of ten, as if she were moved by clockwork, the decks trembled to the thresh of her giant screws, hawsers came writhing in to the rattle of donkey-engines fore and aft, and the black hull of the liner slid slowly past her pier.
Up in the bow, able seaman David Downes waved his cap to Arthur Cochran who had come down to see him off. Their friendship had been knit closer by the sailing of the Sea Witch, and David glowed at the thought of the message which Mr. Cochran, senior, had sent to the steamer by his boy:
"Tell the able seaman that I wasn't as crazy as I seemed when I bought the Sea Witch overnight. If he had wanted her for himself it would have been another matter. But I did it to please him as much as to please the old skipper and my boy. Tell him he has helped me to know what friendship means, in a world where I thought that kind of thing had gone out of style."
As the Roanoke neared Sandy Hook, David saw far ahead a row of tall spars astern of a tug. He forgot his work and rushed to the rail. It was the Sea Witch, and the liner would pass close to her. Soon little patches of white began to break out among the yards of the ship ahead. The bos'n stood beside David and growled in his ear:
"You must not loaf on deck, boy, but maybe a minute won't hurt nothings. It vas a good sight, that. I know it all. Now I hear the captain say to the mate, 'Set your jibs.' And next it is, 'Set your staysails.' And then it is, 'Loose your lower topsails.' Then the mate vill sing out to the men, 'Haul away the lee sail,' or 'Overhaul the main-top-gallant bunt-lines.' But I am an old fool and you are a young loafer. Get along mit you."
As if by magic, the white canvas was spreading higher and higher above the low hull of the Sea Witch, until her royals seemed like bits of the clouds that drifted in the blue sky. As David answered a summons from the bridge, he overheard Captain Thrasher say: