“You are not fair to him,” warmly returned O’Shea. “There is not a man in the crew that has stood up to it any better. Nor am I warped in his favor, for I will own up that he rubbed me the wrong way at first.” “Of course, I have admired the way he handled himself on board the _Fearless_,” admitted Nora, her conscience uneasy that she should be so laggard a champion. “But I hardly expected to hear you sing his praises, Captain O’Shea.” “Why not? I would give me dearest enemy his deserts”--he hesitated and bluntly added--“and then if he got in my way I would do me best to wipe him off the map.” “If he got in your way?” murmured Nora. “I should hate to be the man that stood in your way.” “If there is to be straight talk between us,” demanded O’Shea, “tell me why ye show no more pleasure that this voyage has knocked the foolishness out of Van Steen and made a two-fisted man of him? When he came aboard he was an imitation man that had been spoiled by his money. He is different now. Can ye not see it for yourself?” “Yes, I see it,” replied Nora, regarding O’Shea with a demeanor oddly perplexed. He was not playing the game to her liking. The interview had been twisted to lead her into a blind alley. With a petulant exclamation, she walked briskly toward the farther end of the key. O’Shea followed, admiring, cogitating. Overtaking her, he indicated a broken topmast washed ashore from some tall sailing-ship, and they found seats upon it. The hypnotic spell of the sea took hold of them both until Nora turned and protestingly exclaimed: “Aren’t you fearfully tired of seeing nothing but this great, blue, empty expanse of salt water?” “My eyes could never tire if I had you to look at,” said he, not by way of making love to her, but as a simple statement of fact. Nora appeared happier. This buccaneer of hers was becoming more tractable, but he perversely hauled about on another tack and added: “As long as there are ships to sail the sea, there will be men to go in them, men that will never tire of salt water though it treats them cruel. They will hear the voices of sweethearts and wives on shore, but they will not listen. The hands of little children will beckon, but they will not stay. ’Tis fine to be warm and dry in a house, and to see the green things grow, and men and women living like Christians, but if you are the seafarin’ kind, you must find a ship and put out of port again. I am one of those that will never tire of it, Miss Forbes. Poor old Johnny Kent is different. He sits and sighs for his farm and will talk you deaf about it. My father was a shipmaster before me, and his people were fishermen in the Western Islands.” Nora sighed. O’Shea’s caressing voice rose and fell with a sort of melancholy rhythm, an inheritance from his Celtic forebears. It was as though he were chanting a farewell to her. Her lovely, luminous eyes were suffused. The wind was warm and soft, but she shivered slightly.