You may be sea-sick in a Pacific schooner, bucking against the swell and bending to the north-west trades, you may be mutinous, or angry, or tipsy, but despondency, that low fever of cities and civilisation, has no place out there.
“You ain’t feelin’ the sea, ma’am?” said Captain Bowlby, ranging up alongside of her.
“No,” said she, “I’m a good sailor.”
“I bet you are,” said the captain.
Bowlby had a keen eye for ships and women. He had taken a liking to Mrs. Connart at first sight. She had a steady eye and sure smile that pleased him, and some days later, alone with Ambrose the mate, he voiced his opinions.
“Looks like a mouse, don’t she? Well, there ain’t no mouse about her barring her look. She’s one of them quiet sorts that’d back-chat a congressman if she was put to it, or take a lion by the tail if it was makin’ for one of her kids. I bet she’s rudder and compass both to Connart. She and he fit as if they was welded. Did you ever take notice that there’s chaps you meet that’re only half men till they get a woman that fits them clapped on to them? If she don’t fit they go under the first beam sea they meet; if she do, weather won’t hurt them.”
Ambrose concurred. He was a concurring individual, with few opinions of his own on any matters outside his trade.
“I reckon you’re right,” said he, “though I don’t know much about women—I never had the time,” he finished, apologetically.
2
They raised Maleka at six o’clock one brilliant morning, and by nine it had developed before them, mountainous and green, showing, through the glasses, the blowing foliage, torrent traces and the foam on the barrier reef.