"He's admiring you," said Hardy.
"I dare say the crew on that forecastle are laughing," she exclaimed.
"Sailors are too well fed to laugh easily," replied Hardy. "Oily men, fat men, rich men, seldom laugh."
All between the two speeding vessels was the rush of the white surge, and the ships seemed to salute each other like acquaintances as they bowed in stately rolls and sang the song of the shrouds one to the other, for it is all singing at sea—singing or singing out.
Suddenly when the barque had drawn on to the weather-bow of the York she was luffed up into the wind, and the weather-half of her loftier canvas was aback.
"They mean to visit us," said Hardy.
"Not to stay, I hope," said Julia, anxiously.
In a few moments some figures broke from the barque's forecastle crowd and ran aft, and a white boat of a whaling pattern, sharpened stem and stern, sank from its davits with six men in her, and the man who had given the telescope to the figure on the rail steered the boat.
Hardy put his helm down and shook the wind out of his small canvas, and presently the boat was hooked on alongside, and an American sailor—a chief mate—clambered over the rail on to the deck of the York.