"Do you see somebody? Shall I give you the glasses?" Flora asked.
"No," said Wyndham, sharply. "Hold fast! Look out for her wash!"
Flora seized the coaming and the white wave from the steamer's paddles
lifted the yacht. _Red Rose_ plunged violently and when she steadied,
the passenger boat was slowing near the pier. Flora put down the glasses
and turned to Wyndham. She had seen the little man on the bench and
imagined Harry was studying him. The fellow looked like a foreigner and
she did not like his face. Yet it was strange his being on board the
steamer had annoyed Harry. She thought it had annoyed him, although the
need to warn her about the wash perhaps accounted for the sharpness of
his voice.
"I saw all I wanted," Wyndham resumed, with a touch of grimness. "I
thought you might drop the glasses when the wave struck us. If I wasn't
lazy, I'd send a complaint to the office about their driving their
boats full speed across a yacht anchorage. Has the splash hurt your
dress?"
Flora looked down and shook the sparkling drops from the thin material.
"This stuff won't spoil. A dress that will spoil is no use for yachting;
I've been to sea before."
Soon afterwards the others returned. They had promised to lunch with
Chisholm at the hotel where Flora and Mabel had a room, but by and by
Wyndham remarked:
"I feel rather dull and think I won't go ashore. Perhaps you had better
stay, Bob, and we'll fit the new rigging screws. The others look as if
the hooks might draw in a hard breeze."
"Stay if you like," said Flora. "You have come for a holiday. Are you
sure you feel equal to our climb in the morning?"
Wyndham hesitated. "I'd hate to disappoint you, but I am lazy. I found
the scramble up the big gully hard enough the last time I went along the
ridge, and I hadn't been to Africa then. After close work in an office,
three thousand feet and some awkward rock climbing is a stiff pull."
Flora looked at the others. Harry was tired and rather slack, and she
wanted to indulge him. It was something of a relief when Marston played
up.
"We came for a cruise, not to climb hills," he said. "Let's stop and go
fishing in the dinghy."
"There aren't many fish and digging bait's a bother," Wyndham replied.
"I've a better plan. The wind will turn east at sunset and there is a
moon. Suppose we run down the coast to Carmeltown and see the Irish
boats finish their cross-channel race?"
The others agreed and in the evening _Red Rose_ left the anchorage. It
was getting dark when they hoisted sail, but Marston, who occupied with
the halyards, thought he heard a distant shout. Looking round, he saw a
dinghy near the point.
"Is that somebody hailing us?" he asked.
"I don't think so," said Wyndham. "There are other boats about. But be
careful; you've got the topsail yard foul of the lift."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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