Jack Watchett intimated that he thought it was. He offered to double the bet. He also undertook to sail round the _Star of the South_ in a light wind. He offered to tow her, and made himself so disagreeable that Mrs. Ryder, who knew what became a lady, went below to prevent her snatching the speaking-trumpet from her husband and saying things for which she would be sorry afterwards. But Ryder, though he was by no means a saint, kept his temper and only replied with chaff, which was much more offensive to Watchett than bad language. "And don't be _too_ sure," he added. "I may do you yet." "Not you," said Watchett. "I'm cocksure." They sailed in company for a week, and gradually, as the trade lessened in driving power, the _Battle-Axe_ drew ahead inch by inch. And as she did Mrs. Ryder's appetite failed--she looked thin and ill. "Don't feel it so much, chickabiddy," said her husband. "I can't help it," sobbed Connie. "I hate your cousin. Oh, Will, if you'd only let me entice those two men from him. Bagge was sure that Gribbs and Tidewell would have come." "It wouldn't have been fair," said Ryder. "I--I--wanted to win," replied Connie; "and it'll be calm directly, and you know what that means." It _was_ calm directly, and very soon everyone knew what it meant. For it was a real fat streak of a calm that both vessels ran into. And as luck would have it the _Battle-Axe_, which was by now almost hull down to the nor'ard, got into it first. The _Star of the South_ carried the wind with her till she was within a mile of her rival. For a whole day they pointed their jibbooms alternately at Africa and South America, to the North Pole and the South. What little breeze there was after that day took them farther still into an absolute area of no wind at all. "This is the flattest calm I ever saw," said Ryder. "In such a calm as this he has no advantage." They boxed the compass for the best part of a week and lay and cooked in a sun that made the deck-seams bubble. At night the air was as hot as it had been by day. The men lay on deck, on the deck-house, on the fo'c's'le head. "This is a bally scorcher," said the crews of both ships. "Let's whistle." They whistled feebly, but the god of the winds had gone a journey, or was as fast asleep as Baal. And day by day the two vessels drifted together. At last they had to lower the boats and tow them apart. Watchett was very sick with the whole meteorology of the universe, and being a whole-souled man, incapable of more than one animosity at a time, he found no leisure to spare from reviling a heaven of brass to taunt Ryder. At the end of the week he even hailed the _Star_ and offered to come on board and bring his wife. "I don't want him," said Connie Ryder: "I won't have him." And as she said so she jumped as if a pin had been stuck into her. "What's the matter?" asked her husband. "Nothing," said Connie. "But let him come!"