ated the sight of the sea. They were both young women and
handsome women--and the person to whom they had appealed (being a man)
followed the example of submission to the sex, first set in the garden
of Eden. He enlightened the ladies, in the terms that follow:

THE British merchantman, _Fortuna_, sailed from the port of Liverpool
(at a date which it is not necessary to specify) with the morning tide.
She was bound for certain islands in the Pacific Ocean, in search of a
cargo of sandal-wood--a commodity which, in those days, found a ready
and profitable market in the Chinese Empire.

A large discretion was reposed in the Captain by the owners, who knew
him to be not only trustworthy, but a man of rare ability, carefully
cultivated during the leisure hours of a seafaring life. Devoted
heart and soul to his professional duties, he was a hard reader and an
excellent linguist as well. Having had considerable experience among
the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, he had attentively studied their
characters, and had mastered their language in more than one of its many
dialects. Thanks to the valuable information thus obtained, the Captain
was never at a loss to conciliate the islanders. He had more than once
succeeded in finding a cargo under circumstances in which other captains
had failed.

Possessing these merits, he had also his fair share of human defects.
For instance, he was a little too conscious of his own good looks--of
his bright chestnut hair and whiskers, of his beautiful blue eyes,
of his fair white skin, which many a woman had looked at with the
admiration that is akin to envy. His shapely hands were protected by
gloves; a broad-brimmed hat sheltered his complexion in fine weather
from the sun. He was nice in the choice of his perfumes; he never drank
spirits, and the smell of tobacco was abhorrent to him. New men among
his officers and his crew, seeing him in his cabin, perfectly dressed,
washed, and brushed until he was an object speckless to look upon--a
merchant-captain soft of voice, careful in his choice of words, devoted
to study in his leisure hours--were apt to conclude that they had
trusted themselves at sea under a commander who was an anomalous mixture
of a schoolmaster and a dandy. But if the slightest infraction of
discipline took place, or if the storm rose and the vessel proved to
be in peril, it was soon discovered that the gloved hands held a rod of
iron; that the soft voice could make it