about
us and the land a faint blur on the western horizon. Here, at the moment
of leaving the tug, we made our "departure"--that is to say, technically
began the voyage, despite the fact that we had already travelled a full
twenty-four hours away from Baltimore.

It was about the time of casting off, when I was leaning on the poop-rail
gazing for'ard, when Miss West joined me. She had been busy below all
day, and had just come up, as she put it, for a breath of air. She
surveyed the sky in weather-wise fashion for a full five minutes, then
remarked:

"The barometer's very high--30 degrees 60. This light north wind won't
last. It will either go into a calm or work around into a north-east
gale."

"Which would you prefer?" I asked.

"The gale, by all means. It will help us off the land, and it will put
me through my torment of sea-sickness more quickly. Oh, yes," she added,
"I'm a good sailor, but I do suffer dreadfully at the beginning of every
voyage. You probably won't see me for a couple of days now. That's why
I've been so busy getting settled first."

"Lord Nelson, I have read, never got over his squeamishness at sea," I
said.

"And I've seen father sea-sick on occasion," she answered. "Yes, and
some of the strongest, hardest sailors I have ever known."

Mr. Pike here joined us for a moment, ceasing from his everlasting pacing
up and down to lean with us on the poop-rail.

Many of the crew were in evidence, pulling on ropes on the main deck
below us. To my inexperienced eye they appeared more unprepossessing
than ever.

"A pretty scraggly crew, Mr. Pike," Miss West remarked.

"The worst ever," he growled, "and I've seen some pretty bad ones. We're
teachin' them the ropes just now--most of 'em."

"They look starved," I commented.

"They are, they almost always are," Miss West answered, and her eyes
roved over them in the same appraising, cattle-buyer's fashion I had
marked in Mr. Pike. "But they'll fatten up with regular hours, no
whiskey, and solid food--won't they, Mr. Pike?"

"Oh, sure. They always do. And you'll see them liven up when we get 'em
in hand . . . maybe. They're a measly lot, though."

I looked aloft at the vast towers of canvas. Our four masts seemed to
have flowered into all the sails possible, yet the sailors beneath us,
under Mr. Mellaire's direction, were setting triangular sails, like jibs,
between the masts, and there were so many that they overlapped one
an