"I hope, Caudel," said I, astonished by this resolution in him, "that you'll not stick to her on my account. Let the wretched craft go and—" I held the rest behind my teeth.
"No, sir. There'll be nothen to hurt in the leak if so be as the weather gets better, and it's fast getting better as you can see. What? Let a pretty little dandy craft like the Spitfire go down merely for the want of pumping? All of us men are agreed to stick to her and carry her home."
Grace looked at me; I understood the meaning her eyes conveyed, and exclaimed:
"The men will do as they please. They are plucky fellows, and if they carry the yacht home, she shall be sold, and two-thirds of what she fetches divided amongst them. But I have had enough of her, and more than enough of yachting. I must see you, my pet, safe on board some ship that does not leak!"
"I could not live through another night in the Spitfire," she exclaimed.
"No, miss, no," rumbled Caudel, soothingly; "nor would it be right and proper that you should be asked to live through it. They'll be sending for ye presently; though, of course, as the vessel's outward bound—" here he ran his eyes slowly round the sea, "ye've got to consider that onless she falls in soon with something that'll land you, why then, of course, you both stand to have a longer spell of seafaring than Mr. Barclay and me calculated upon when this here elopement was planned."
"Where is she bound to, I wonder?" I said, viewing the tall, noble vessel, with a yearning to be aboard her with Grace at my side; the desperate seas which still stormily tossed between her and us safely traversed.
"To Australia, I allow," answered Caudel. "Them passengers ye sees forrads and along the bulwark rail ain't of the sort that goes to Chaney or the Hindies."
"We can't go to Australia, Herbert," said Grace, surveying me with startled eyes.
"My dear Grace, there are plenty of ships betwixt this Channel and Australia—plenty hard by, rolling up Channel, and willing to land us for a few sovereigns, would their steersmen only shift their helm and approach within hail."