Historical fiction; Love stories; Philadelphia (Pa.) -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction; Sea stories
All through the breakfast, Anthony and mademoiselle talked with Tom
Horn, and more than one of his peculiar charts came to the table while
they sat there; then the two went on deck, leaving the man poring
over his figures, his signs, and his curving lines. The morning was
sparkling: the west wind pushed boisterously in the sails, and the
little schooner leaped ahead. Corkery approached from amidships, at a
look from Anthony.
"How does she set into her work?" asked the young man.
"As ably as a craft twice her bulk," said the mate. "This is no narrow
spread of sail," with a look up at the strong, weather-stained canvas,
"and yet see how steadily she stands under it."
The _Roebuck_ slipped easily up the long sides of the sea, her sharp
prow split its crests, and then she'd sleek jauntily down into the vast
hollows, flirting the water from her like a duck. The sky was a rare
color, with racing clouds upon its breast; the sun lifted higher and
higher, and the gleam of the sea grew brighter, throwing back the sky's
own blue, the waves thinning to a green and breaking into a sudden,
hissing white. The face of mademoiselle was filled with wonder.
"I have never before been to sea in a little ship," she said, "and so
I have not known what being at sea means." Her eyes swept the sky and
heaving water; she breathed in the wonderful, singing air; her body
swayed with the spring of the craft beneath her. "It is glorious!" she
said.
Anthony nodded: _he_ did not look at the sea and sky; he looked at
_her_. And he said:
"Yes, it is glorious."
The full west wind held and blew the _Roebuck_ before it all that day;
it whistled sharply through the night, and Anthony, whose watch it was
on deck stripped the schooner of a part of her sail. The second morning
saw the sea running grayer and longer; the sky was steely, and the
sun was hidden. This held for twenty-four hours; then the wind hauled
around to the east and scraped the sky's gray into mountains of black;
the rain and wind lashed about, and the sea leaped to meet them; the
schooner, under topsail and jib, was tossed like a chip, but she held
stanchly upright and fought her way through, the blow scarcely wetting
her decks. At the end of the fourth day out, Anthony, who stood near
the helmsman, mademoiselle at his side, saw a blue gleam through the
sober sky.
"The sun will shine to-morrow," he said, "and the sea will run down
during the night."
"I am almost sorry," she said. "The angry sea is amazing; I'm afraid I
shall not like it, smiling, as greatly as I did before."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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