'Ay, captain, that's my yacht, and this is my daughter,' answered Vanderholt, continuing to grin with all his might, whilst he looked first at Captain Lind, and then aloft, and then along the decks.
'What do I owe you for that sugar?' said Captain Lind.
'Our visit fully discharges your obligations, captain. There is enough, maybe, to keep you sweet till you get more.'
'Well, I thank you,' said the lady skipper; 'and when I have seen that cask safely inboards, we'll go into the cabin and drink a cup of tea.'
Mr. Vanderholt pulled out his watch, then, hailing Glew, said that he and Miss Vanderholt would remain another half-hour on board the barque.
'Don't let the vessels slide far apart, Glew!' he roared. 'Tweed, whilst we're below keep a bright look-out on the weather.'
The mate of the Mowbray touched his cap.
Miss Vanderholt stared with amazement at Captain Lind. A woman in charge of a ship! A woman qualified to handle the complicated machinery of the gear and sails of a barque of no mean tonnage, as tonnage then went! Did the men obey her? Wasn't she afraid of her sailors? And Miss Violet turned to inspect the seamen who were getting the sugar aboard in the gangway, whilst others lay on the rail lazily staring at the Mowbray from the forecastle-head. A rough lot they looked—rougher even than the Mowbray's crew, by virtue, no doubt, of their apparel, which was showing very much like the end of a long voyage. They carried sheath-knives on their hips, straw hats or Scotch caps on their heads; their naked breasts disclosed the wool upon them through rents in the flying wide dungaree shirt. And a woman had command of these fellows, had held them obedient, and brought them and the ship in safety to that part of the ocean in which the Mowbray had encountered them! Who had ever heard of such a thing? It was a fact worth going to sea to realize. 'How George will laugh and doubt when I tell him!' Miss Vanderholt thought, as she looked with wonder, deepening ever, at the amazing figure built up of petticoat-trousers and blue jacket, very plentifully braided.
When the sugar was on board, Captain Lind, calling to the man in the opera-cap, said: