"My captain will be getting impatient," said the mate. "He'll wonder that you don't take assistance."
"If your men will hoist that canvas for me," answered Hardy, "I shall ask no more help."
"What a beautiful dog is that!" said the Yankee mate, hanging in the wind, so much did he relish this novel rencounter and brief association in mid-Atlantic with a young lady of incomparable figure. "I would be the happiest man in America if I owned that dog."
"All America would not purchase him," answered Hardy; "his name is Sailor, and he has the spirit of Nelson. He helps me and the watch-tackle to brace up, keeps a lookout like a madman in search of the philosopher's stone, never gets drunk, and always says his prayers before he turns in. Will you have another drop of brandy?"
"No more, sir, I thank you."
Saying which the mate went to the side and hailed the boat. Hardy kept the York in the wind and the barque was already in the wind, and neither vessel therefore had any way to speak of. The boat, well fended off, slobbered alongside, chucked and dived, spat and hissed like a kitten sporting with its mother. To the cry of the mate four men sprang into the chains, and were on deck with the activity of Britons boarding a Frenchman. Fine-looking fellows they were, three of them Englishmen who had been forced by Great Britain's love of foreign labour to earn their bread under the Stripes and Stars. They stared about them with sheepish grins because a woman was hard by. Had the girl been a British skipper their smileless faces would have grown as long as wet hammocks.
"Fill a drink for them, Julia," said Hardy.
Another glass was fetched, four glasses brimmed, and with a "Well, here's luck, sir," down went the doses through throats to which the aroma of cognac was as strange a bliss as heaven to a newly arrived soul.
"Shall we make more sail for you?" said the mate.