David's face turned very red, he winked hard and tried to hold back the words that rushed to his lips:
"But I must go on deck, sir. I—I—" he broke off and steadied himself with a great effort. Before the amazed officer could reply to this mutinous outburst David had come to himself. Discipline and duty took command again, and he added in a tone of appeal:
"Please forget what I just said, sir. I didn't mean to talk back. Of course I'll stay."
The officer cast a sour look at the lad, as if in half a mind to punish him. Then with a gruff "Keep your tongue in your head next time," he went away.
David looked around at the speck of blue ocean which glinted through an open porthole. Margaret's ship was out there, but he could not see her. Every moment the liner and the Sea Witch were drawing farther and farther apart. And Margaret—was she looking for him, trying to send across the water her message: "Don't forget your dearest folks"?
The disconsolate David, sulking in the steerage, was not wise enough to know that in this trying hour he was doing that which would have made his "dearest folks" happy in this big boy of theirs.
When at length he climbed on deck, the stately Sea Witch was hull-down against the blue of the south-western sky. Lower and lower dropped the pyramid of sail, until a fleck of white hung for an instant on the horizon line. David rubbed his eyes, and looked again. The Sea Witch had vanished.
He turned away and looked up at the bridge of the Roanoke. Captain Thrasher was pacing his airy pathway, quiet, ready, masterful, while the strength of fifteen thousand horses drove the Black Star liner toward her goal. David Dowries was sure in his heart that he had chosen the right way, although it was the hardest way. As the sun went down, he gazed across the heaving sea where he had last glimpsed the Sea Witch, and said to himself:
"What I ought to do, not what I want to do: that is the course Captain John and Margaret told me to steer. And here is where I belong."