'The Equator's no coast,' said the red-headed man.
'The covey that owns this here craft,' exclaimed the carpenter, who was also the boatswain, 'is a Dutchman. He ain't a Dutchman only—he's a feenansure. Now, I've heard tell that when a Dutchman makes more money than his mind's capable of weighing the idea of, his intellects go wrong. Did ye ever hear of the prices they paid for toolips? I'm the son of a sweep, lads, if some of 'em didn't pay as much as a £100 in good money for a durned stalk not worth a cabbage! They was all rich men as bought them bulbs, and they was all mad; and you lay your last farden's-worth of silver spoons if this here scheme of a voyage to the Equator ain't the caper of a blooming Dutchman who's made so much money that his brains have given under the weight of the idea of his fortune!'
Just then a large white boat was seen to be approaching the Mowbray from the direction of Greenwich, and in a few minutes she was alongside—a boat full of ladies and gentlemen; and Captain Glew stood at the open gangway, cap in hand. The party consisted of Mr. and Miss Vanderholt and a few friends who had accompanied them to Greenwich to see them off. Vanderholt shook hands with his captain, nodded to the mate, and cast a look of approval in the direction of the forecastle. He seemed in high spirits. His eyes smiled deep in their little sockets, and the fresh and friendly wind blew his beard into twenty expressions of kindly laughter. He was rigged out for the sea. No Minories slop-shop could have furnished him with a salter aspect. The seamen on the forecastle eyed him, and murmured one to another. They seemed to recognise their own vocation in the man, yet viewed him doubtfully, as dogs watch with suspicion the dog in Punch and Judy.
His daughter was handsomely draped in velvet and fur, and wore a turban-shaped hat that was as good for the deck as for her looks. In a minute there was a little crowd of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies standing on the quarter-deck, gazing around them and aloft, with Mr. Vanderholt laughing with the wind in his beard, and Miss Vi gazing somewhat pensively at the full scene of the schooner.
It was the right sort of morning for a start for the ocean. The brisk breeze covered the surface of the river with sliding shapes, coming and going. A large Indiaman, newly arrived, with the rust of four months of brine draining down her chain-plate bolts, her sheathing green as grass, with a quivering of weeds here and there, lay off the Docks opposite. Her house-flag blew stately from the lofty masthead; stately and proud, too, she floated, tall and square. She seemed alive, and conscious of victory. The lights of her cabin windows shook through the ripples in long darts of silver. A chorus of thirty stormy throats swept down the wind, and there came out of that inspiriting windlass-song of sailors who had brought their lofty ship home the whole spirit of the ocean into this living, brimming picture of river.
Mr. Vanderholt's friends walked about the decks of the Mowbray, praising the schooner highly.
'He goes alone with his daughter,' said one gentleman to another, 'and touches nowhere. I do not envy her.'
'Don't you remember,' said the other, 'what the German said? "I don't see der use of being seek onless you makes your friends seek mit you."'
They both laughed.
Mr. Vanderholt led the whole party into the cabin, where they found the table clothed for a cold lunch. A steward stood in a corner, waiting for the hour to strike when he should summon the company by a bell. Some baskets of champagne were beside him. It was a roomy cabin, with plenty of accommodation for eight or nine people to sit at table; brightly lighted, handsomely upholstered, painted and gilded as charmingly as a drawing-room. Some little berths aft had been knocked into two, and Violet was very well pleased with the size and comfort of her sea bedroom. She would swing in a cot; the furniture provided her with many more conveniences than she would get ashore in a friend's house.