Doubloons-and the Girl Part 18

"Nonsense!" disclaimed Drew, although conscious that his tone did not carry conviction. "She's a very nice girl, but this is only the second time I've met her." To avoid further prodding, he added: "I'll go down to your room and see if that j.a.p has put things shipshape for you."

As he went to the room reserved for Grimshaw, he met Ruth just coming out of it. Her skirts brushed against him in the narrow corridor and he tingled to the finger tips.

"I've just put a few flowers in Mr. Grimshaw's room," she said. "They seem to make the bare little cubby holes a bit more homey, don't you think? I thought they would be a sort of welcome."

Drew agreed with her, but the hope he had been hugging to his breast that he had been singled out for special attention vanished.

"I was foolish enough to think that I had them all," he confessed with a sheepish grin.

"What a greedy man!" she laughed. "No, indeed! Did you think I was going to overlook my father or Mr. Parmalee? You men are so conceited!"

As though the mention of his name had summoned him, the door of a neighboring stateroom opened just then and a young man stepped out. He smiled pleasantly as his gaze fell on Ruth.

"Good morning, Miss Ruth. I'm incorrigibly lazy, I'm afraid," he remarked, "or else this good air is responsible for my sleeping more soundly than for a long time past."

Ruth a.s.sured him that it was still early.

"If you are lazy, the sun is too," she said, "for, like yourself, it has just risen."

"That makes him lazier," returned Parmalee, "for he went to rest a good deal earlier than I did last night."

Ruth laughed, and, after introducing the young men to each other, she vanished in the direction of the captain's cabin.

The pair exchanged the usual commonplaces as they moved toward the companionway. Parmalee walked with some difficulty, leaning on a cane, and Drew had to moderate his pace to keep in step. When they emerged into the full light of the upper deck, Drew had a chance to gain an impression of the man who was to be his fellow-voyager.

Lester Parmalee was fully four inches shorter than the trifle over six feet to which Drew owned, and his slender frame gave him an appearance of fragility. This impression was heightened by the cane on which he leaned and the lines in his face which bespoke delicate health. His complexion was pale, and seemed more pallid because of its contrast with a ma.s.s of coal black hair which overhung his rather high forehead.

His nose and mouth were good and his eyes dark and keenly intelligent.

Some would have called him handsome. Others would have qualified this by the adjective romantic. All would have agreed that he was a gentleman.

His physical weakness was atoned for to a great extent by other qualities that grew on one by longer acquaintance. His manners were polished, his mind trained and well stored. He was a graduate of Harvard and had traveled extensively. His inherited wealth had not spoiled him, although it had, perhaps, given him too much self-a.s.surance and just a shade of superciliousness.

The two young men as they chatted formed a violent contrast. If Drew suggested the Viking type, Parmalee would, with equal fitness, have filled the role of a troubadour. The one was powerful and direct, the other suave and subtle. One could conceive of Drew's wielding a broad axe, but would have put in Parmalee's hands a rapier. Each had his own separate and distinct appeal both to men and women.

Drew introduced Parmalee to Grimshaw. Then the captain came along, and all four were engaged in an animated conversation when Namco, the j.a.panese steward, announced:

"Lady say I make honorable report: Bleakfast!"

"And high time for it!" cried the captain. "I'm as hungry as a hawk and I guess the rest of you are too. We'll go down and see what that slant-eyed Celestial has knocked up for us."

Wah Lee had "done himself proud" in this initial meal, which proved to be abundant, well-cooked and appetizing.

All were in high spirits as they gathered about the table. Ordinarily, the mate would have formed one of the company while the second officer stood the captain's watch. But the narrow quarters and the unusual number of pa.s.sengers on this trip made it necessary that the mate should eat after the captain and his guests had finished.

The captain sat at the head of the table while Ruth presided over the coffee urn at the foot. Tyke sat at the captain's right, and the two young men were placed one on either side of their hostess.

She wore a fetching breakfast cap, which did not prevent a rebellious wisp or two of golden hair from playing about her pink ears. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes sparkling, and her demure little housewifely air as she poured the coffee was bewitching. The excitement of the start, the novelty of the quest on which they had embarked, and the presence of two young and attentive cavaliers put her on her mettle, and she was full of quaint sayings and witty sallies.

Her father gazed on her fondly, Tyke beamed approvingly, and Parmalee's admiration was undisguised. As for Drew, the havoc she had already made in his heart reached alarming proportions. He found himself picturing a home ash.o.r.e, where every morning that face would be opposite to him at the breakfast table with that ravishing dimple coming and going as she smiled at him.

"How do you like your coffee?" she asked him, her slender fingers hovering over the cream jug and the sugar tongs.

"Two lumps of cream and plenty of sugar," he responded.

She laughed mischievously.

"We always try to please," she said; "but really our cream doesn't come in lumps."

He reddened.

"I surely did get that twisted," he said a little sheepishly. "Suppose we put it the other way around."

"I guess your mind was far away," she jested. "You must have been thinking of the treasure."

"That's exactly right," he returned, looking into her eyes as he took the cup she handed him. "I was thinking of the treasure."

CHAPTER XIV

BEGINNING THE VOYAGE

Ruth bent a little lower over her coffee urn to hide the additional flush that had come into her cheeks, and after that she guided the conversation to safer ground and took care to leave no opening for Drew's audacity.

The meal over, all went on deck. The captain took charge and sent Ditty and Rogers, the second officer, below to get breakfast. The crew had already breakfasted.

Tyke had been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton and placed in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes could delight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussed around him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, until the veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before the voyage was over.

They had pa.s.sed the Battery by this time, and were moving sluggishly with the tide. Behind them stretched the vast metropolis, with its wonderful sky-line sharply outlined by the bright rays of the morning sun. The G.o.ddess of Liberty held her torch aloft as though to guide them in their venture. At the right the hills of Staten Island smiled in their vernal beauty, while at the left, white stretches of gleaming beach indicated the pleasure resorts where the people of the teeming city came to play.

Ditty had come on deck again. Unpleasant though his countenance was, and as suspicious as Drew was of him, it was plain that the mate of the _Bertha Hamilton_ was a good seaman.

He looked now at Captain Hamilton for permission to make sail. The latter signed to him to go ahead. Useless to pay towage with a favoring wind and flowing tide.

Ditty bawled to the crew:

"Break her out, bullies! H'ist away tops'ls!"

The halyards were promptly manned. One man started the chorus that jerked the main topsail aloft.

"Oh, come all you little yaller boys An' roll the cotton _down_!

Oh, a husky pull, my bully boys, An' roll the cotton _down_!"

In a trice, it would seem, her three topsails were mastheaded and the foretopsail laid to the mast. The fore-braces came in, hand over hand, the hawsers were tossed overboard and the tug fell astern. The _Bertha Hamilton_ leaned gracefully to the freshening gale, and was shooting for the Narrows.

"It is perfectly beautiful, isn't it?" cried Ruth.

"Magnificent," agreed Drew.