Caudel told me we were drawing well on to Portland, but that the wind had headed him, and he was off his course, so that, unless he put the yacht about, we should not obtain a sight of the land.
"No matter," said I, "let us make the most of this slant."
"That's what I'm for doing, sir. My principle is, always make a free wind, no matter what be the air that's ablowing. Some men's for ratching with the luff of their fore and aft canvas rounding in aweather, so cleverly do they try to split the eye of the breeze. I'm for sailing myself," and he cast a glance up at the rapful canvas, following it on with a look at Jacob Crew, who was suddenly gnawing upon his quid at the tiller, as though to keep him in mind by the expression of his eye of injunctions previously delivered.
The greater part of this day Grace and I spent on deck, but nothing whatever happened good enough to keep my tale waiting whilst I tell you about it. Strong as the off-shore breeze was, there was but little sea, nothing to stop the yacht, and she ran through it like a sledge over a snow plain, piling the froth to her stem-head and reeling off a fair nine knots as Caudel would cry out to me with an exultant countenance of leather every time the log was hove. He talked of being abreast of the Start by three o'clock in the morning.
"Then," said I to my sweetheart, "if that be so, Grace, there will be but a short cruise to follow."
At this she looked grave, and fastened her eye with a wistful expression upon the sea over the bows as though Mount's Bay lay there, and as though the quaint old town of Penzance, with its long esplanade and rich flanking of green and well-tilled heights, would be presently showing.
I read her thoughts and said, "I have never met Mrs. Howe, but Frank's letters about her to me were as enthusiastic as mine were about you to him. He calls her sweetly pretty. So she may be. I know she is a lady; her connections are good; I am also convinced by Frank's description that she is amiable; consequently, I am certain she will make you happy and comfortable until—" and here I squeezed her hand..
"It is a desperate step, Herbert," she sighed.
Upon which I changed the subject.
There was a noble flaring sunset that evening. The crimson of it was deep and thunderous; the wild splendour was rendered portentous by an appearance as of bars of cloud stretched horizontally across, as though they railed in the flames of a continent on fire. All day long the wind had been heading us a little off our course, which by magnetic compass was about W.S.W., and this magnificence of sunset at which Grace and I continued to stare with eyes of admiration and wonder, neither of us having ever seen the like of the red and burning glory that overhung the sea, stood well up on the starboard bow. The Channel waters ran to it in a dark and frothing green till they were smitten by the light, when they throbbed in blood for a space, then flowed in dark green afresh, hardening into a firm, cold, darkly green horizon.