"We're homeward bound in a clipper ship, lassie!" he called as he discovered her. Nor would he eat or drink until he had told her where the storm had carried the Daphne and what it meant to them. He was like a big, wholesome boy and she told him so. His enthusiasm stirred her with a desire to be under way immediately. The Daphne became personal in the gold woman's thoughts as Paul described her capabilities, and therewith she understood the love of a man for a ship which women rarely do.
"Unless we're picked up by some other vessel we'll be up with the Golden Gate in less than a month!"
Emily's face clouded at the suggestion of another vessel rescuing them. Paul laughed.
"You may not understand, but I wish we might sail the Daphne into our own home port. Think what a prize it would mean to you."
A hope lived in his heart for an instant that this might come true. It was gone when he answered her.
"The first vessel that comes along we go in her, lassie; and leave the Daphne to the sea."
Yet as Emily lay down in the lounge a little while later and saw Paul hang a light of distress in the mizzen rigging, the strange wish that it would go unseen was uppermost in her heart. She wanted the Daphne to remain his, but she would not admit to herself the reason upon which that hope was predicated.
CHAPTER XXX
With the first streak of day Paul was on deck. The blow-off of the donkey, which he had set at a low pressure a couple of hours before, roused him from the berth he had stretched along the carpenter's bench. Custom trains seafarers as it does soldiers on campaign to live by a broken sleep which the average workaday citizen thinks would kill him. Although Paul had been up at intervals during the night, with an eye for the weather and any chance lights, he was filled with an eager freshness. A stirring was coming out of the northwest. There was a tang in it which promised a whole sail breeze. It put a song in his heart, and a little while later Emily was awakened by his clear voice ringing through the morning air, "The Chanty of the Rio Grande."