The wind held a sweet, true breeze as Hardy had foreseen, whilst that brave little heart kept the ship's course steady to the lubber's point. She was not tired, sleep had refreshed her; standing was no trial; she was warmly draped, and felt a sort of glory in this occupation of sea-throne, which enabled her to do her duty and to hold her sweetheart in tranquil and most necessary repose. She was quick in intelligence, and the sea was small and its weight was of the summer; and she found a woman's delight in her power of governing, for the ship answered to her white hand with a courtier-like grace; she felt to be queen of the lordly fabric, and her spell at the wheel was a triumph of British girlhood.
CHAPTER XVII. THE BOAT-FULL
It was hard upon half-past two in the morning. The breeze had been blowing steadily throughout, and the white pace of the ship was more than six knots in the hour. Julia put her hand into her pocket and pulled out Hardy's watch and saw what o'clock it was; the stars flashed over the mastheads with each floating reel of the buoyant, girl-controlled fabric; the silver dust of the speeding star vanishing in a length of fainting light scored the deep midnight blue between the clouds; the voice of the ocean rejoicing in the swinging dance of the breeze filled the air with sounds of the cataract, the foam of the waterfall, the wrangle of the freshet with the sea.
Suddenly, far forward past the shadowy arch of the fore-course, you heard the deep bay of a great dog. A ship was in sight!
"O God!" cried Julia at the wheel, interpreting the deep-noted thunder of the great creature, "What am I to do?"
But such a bark as Sailor could deliver was not to sound unheeded in the sleeping ear of a seaman. Hardy started, rolled out of his hen-coop, and was by Julia's side in a few pulses.
"I see her," he shouted, and seizing the wheel he put it hard a-port.