He is a lucky sailor to whom is granted the opportunity of teaching a girl with a romantic face and a beautiful figure the art of steering a full-rigged ship. Though the sailor is often in the company of ladies at sea, he is kept very severely forward, whilst the ladies are kept very severely aft; and if they formed a seraglio imprisoned on soft couches and fanned by eunuchs, behind walls ten feet thick, Jack at sea could not know less of the ladies at sea. Hardy's job was therefore a delightful one, and the more delightful because the ship was now homeward bound, and the morning was fair and the sea courteous and graceful in caress. "Do you see that black mark on the white under the glass?" "Yes," answered the girl. "It is called the lubber's mark: it is the business of the helmsman to keep a point of the compass aiming at it; that point is the ship's course. Do you observe that the point that is levelled at the lubber's mark is north-by-east?" "If you call it so I shall remember it," answered the girl. "The lubber's point," Hardy continued, "represents an imaginary line ruled straight from the stern into the very eyes of the ship, where the bowsprit and jib-booms point the road. If, then, I tell you to keep that point called north-by-east pointing as steadily as the swing of the ship's head will permit to the lubber's mark, then I am asking you to steer the ship in the direction I wish her to go." She frowned a little in contemplation at the compass card, and said, "I believe I understand you." "I will teach you to box the compass presently," Hardy went on. "You will easily get the names, and will not be at a loss if I should say the course is northeast or nor'-nor'east, and so on. And now see here: the action of a ship's wheel exactly reverses the action of a boat's tiller. Look under that grating; that is the tiller, and when you revolve the wheel the chains which drag the tiller sweep the rudder on one side or the other, so that when I tell you to put your helm a-starboard you revolve your wheel to the left, which will bring the rudder over to the left; and when I say port your helm you revolve your wheel to the right, which carries your rudder over to the right. If you steered by the tiller, then to the order of starboard your helm, you would put your tiller to the right. Do you understand?" The machinery of the compass, the wheel, the tiller, and its chains girdling the barrel, was all before her, and she would have been a blockhead if she had not grasped the simple matter speedily--but you, madam, who are a lady and read this, may be puzzled; possibly you are not, but if you are I do not wonder. "Now," he said, "I want the ship to be off her course: mark what I do; she shall be a little to leeward of her course." He put the helm by a few spokes over, and the binnacle card revolved two points from its course as the ship's head rounded away with the wind.