then the big windlass
began to turn, the rope was "paid out," and the slow, rather creaky
journey up the mast had begun.

It was a perfect day for the adventure. The ship was not rolling at
all, the little motion to be felt being a gentle tilt from stem to
stern which manifested itself at long intervals in the slightest
imaginable dip of the prow. And presently the ascent was accomplished,
and the "crow's nest" once more clung in its accustomed place against
the mast,--forty feet up in the air, according to Mr. Grey's
reckoning.

As they looked across the great sea the horizon seemed to have receded
to an incalculable distance, and the airs that came to them across
that broad expanse, unsullied by the faintest trace of man or his
works, were purer than are often vouchsafed to mortals. Blythe felt
her heart grow big with the sense of space and purity, and this
wonderful swift passage through the upper air. Involuntarily she took
off her hat to get the full sweep of the breeze upon her forehead.

Suddenly, a new sound reached her ear,--a small, remote, confidential
kind of voice, that seemed to arrive from nowhere in particular.

"It's the Captain, hailing us through his megaphone," her companion
remarked; and, glancing down, far down, in the direction of the
bridge, Blythe beheld the Captain, looking curiously attenuated in the
unusual perspective, standing with a gigantic object resembling a
cornucopia raised to his lips.

"You like it vare you are?" quoth the uncanny voice, not loud, but
startlingly near.

And Blythe nodded her head and waved her hat in vigorous assent.

The great ship stretched long and narrow astern, the main deck shut in
with awnings through which the huge smokestacks rose, and the
wide-mouthed ventilators crooked their necks. Along either outer edge
of the awnings a line of lifeboats showed, tied fast in their
high-springing davits, while from the mouth of the yellow
ship's-funnels black masses of smoke floated slowly and heavily
astern. The _Lorelei_ swam the water like a wonderful white aquatic
bird, leaving upon the quiet sea a long snowy track of foam.

On a line with their lofty perch a sailor swung spider-like among the
network of sheets and halyards that clung about the mainmast, its
meshes clearly defined against the pure blue of the sky, while below
there, on the bridge, the big brass nautical instruments gleamed, and
the caps of the Captain and his lieutenants showed white in th