repulsion. For the
moment she knew a fleeting doubt of the man. Perhaps Sheldon was right
in his judgment of the other. She did not know, and it concerned her
little; for boats, and the sea, and the things and happenings of the sea
were of far more vital interest to her than men, and the next moment she
was staring through the warm tropic darkness at the loom of the sails and
the steady green of the moving sidelight, and listening eagerly to the
click of the sweeps in the rowlocks. In her mind's eye she could see the
straining naked forms of black men bending rhythmically to the work, and
somewhere on that strange deck she knew was the inevitable master-man,
conning the vessel in to its anchorage, peering at the dim tree-line of
the shore, judging the deceitful night-distances, feeling on his cheek
the first fans of the land breeze that was even then beginning to blow,
weighing, thinking, measuring, gauging the score or more of ever-shifting
forces, through which, by which, and in spite of which he directed the
steady equilibrium of his course. She knew it because she loved it, and
she was alive to it as only a sailor could be.

Twice she heard the splash of the lead, and listened intently for the cry
that followed. Once a man's voice spoke, low, imperative, issuing an
order, and she thrilled with the delight of it. It was only a direction
to the man at the wheel to port his helm. She watched the slight
altering of the course, and knew that it was for the purpose of enabling
the flat-hauled sails to catch those first fans of the land breeze, and
she waited for the same low voice to utter the one word "Steady!" And
again she thrilled when it did utter it. Once more the lead splashed,
and "Eleven fadom" was the resulting cry. "Let go!" the low voice came
to her through the darkness, followed by the surging rumble of the anchor-
chain. The clicking of the sheaves in the blocks as the sails ran down,
head-sails first, was music to her; and she detected on the instant the
jamming of a jib-downhaul, and almost saw the impatient jerk with which
the sailor must have cleared it. Nor did she take interest in the two
men beside her till both lights, red and green, came into view as the
anchor checked the onward way.

Sheldon was wondering as to the identity of the craft, while Tudor
persisted in believing it might be the _Martha_.

"It's the _Minerva_," Joan said decidedly.

"How do you know?" Sheldon asked, scepti