The recounting of his delayed return offered Gerrit a welcome relief from the pervading strain: "There's no tea to speak of at Shanghai, and I took on a mixed cargo--pongees and porcelain and matting. I got camphor and cassia and seven hundred peculs of ginger; then I decided to lay a course to Manilla for some of the cheroots father likes. The weather was fine, I had a good cargo, and, well--we pleasured out to Honolulu. I was riding the island horses and shipping oil when the schooner _Kahemameha_ arrived from the coast with the news of the gold discovery in California. Every boat in the harbor was loaded to the trucks, crowded with passengers at their weight in ginseng, and laid for San Francisco.... Well, I was caught with the rest. "Five thousand dollars was offered me to carry a gentleman and his attendant. Two others would pay three for the same purpose. Stowage was worth what you asked.... The _Nautilus_ made a good run; then, about a day from land, Mr. Broadrick told me that there wouldn't be a seaman on the ship an hour after we anchored. They were all crazy with gold fever, he said. I could see, too, that they were excited; the watch hung under the weather rail jabbering like parrots; an uglier crew of sea lawyers never developed. "There was one thing to do and I did it--called them aft and gave them some hot scouse. They'd shipped for Salem and there they must go. I didn't anchor, but stood off--the harbor was crowded with deserted vessels like some hell for ships--and sent the jolly boat in with the passengers and a couple of men. They didn't come back, you may be sure. The consignment for San Francisco I carried out that evening, for I made sail at once." "You had a pretty time getting a way on her," Jeremy Ammidon remarked. "I did," Gerrit acknowledged shortly. "The second mate's ear was taken loose by a belaying pin that flew out of the dark like a gull. Mr. Broadrick had a bad minute in the port forecastle after he had ordered all hands on deck a third time. The fine weather left us, though, and that kept the crew busy; we carried away the fore-royal mast and yard before we were within a thousand miles of the latitude of the Horn. That hit us like a cannon ball of ice. You know what it is at its worst," he told his father; "weeks of snow and hail and fog and gales; and not for anything can you keep an easting. God knows how a ship lives through the seas; but she does, she does, and you lose the Magellan clouds astern." The old man nodded. Gerrit was relieved, however, when supper ended and his wife formally departed for her room. Immediately slipping a hand inside Rhoda's arm he conducted her to the drawing-room. "I'd like you to know more about it," he said directly.