"Scoot, ladies," said the mate, "or in three shakes you'll be as wet as the river!" A single glance up the stream--though Ramsey must needs take a double one--showed the rain coming, so near and so dense that not a sign of the _Antelope_ was visible. The company fled, some to a larboard stair, some to a starboard. Hugh and Ramsey suddenly missed the Gilmores, the Gilmores missed them, each pair turned to find the other, the lashing rain leaped down upon them as if they were all it had come for, and with words lost in a second thunder-clap the mate threw open the captain's room, pressed them in, and began to dry them with a whisk-broom. The captain, he said, was below. "Off watch didn't mean off watch to John Courteney." "Nor to Gideon Hayle," prompted Ramsey, and while he ha-haed a cordial assent she asked: "Whereabouts below is he--Captain Courteney?" But the mate had turned away and she asked Hugh: "Where's your father? What's he doing?" Her thought was still on the unmentionable new case. "I'll tell you," said Hugh in the low voice she liked so well. "Will you look at the river with me?" He felt her responsive nod and smile even after they had moved to the front window farthest from their three seniors and stood gazing out into the beautiful tempest. Both wind and downpour had somewhat slackened their fury. A bit nearer than before and more to starboard they could faintly make out the _Antelope_, so white that it seemed as if she had gone down and her ghost come up wrapped and whipped in sheets of rain. "You don't ask me about your mother," said Hugh. XXXVI CAPTAIN'S ROOM "Ah!--when you've been all this time with us!" "No, once I was away, a good while." "That's so! And while you was away--were away--" In lively undertone Ramsey ran on to tell of Mrs. Gilmore's having in Hugh's absence called in her maid Harriet to show the young lady from Napoleon how to do a bit of stage business without a hint of the stage. At the tale's end the pair glanced round from the nearing _Antelope_ to the Gilmores and back again. "Harriet's talented. You wouldn't think she could be talented. And isn't she handsome!" "I've yet to see her face," said Hugh abstractedly. "That's so, too! When she heard you coming back that time, she ran like a kildee." The narrator checked a laugh. "How's mom-a? Oh, she's well or you'd have told me. I just can't imagine mom-a any way but well." But again the tone betrayed incertitude. "Yes, she's well," said the youth. "So is my father." "Where is he?" Hugh's queer solemnity deepened. "He's down in a stateroom with your brothers. The senator and the general have just joined them." What a freshet of grave information! Ramsey laughed straight at him. "You talk like a trance medium." "Not at all." "You do! I heard one once. You're in a trance now." "Not at all."