“And Williams?  I am to submit to his insolence?”

She stopped and turned, and the smile faded.

“The next time,” she said, “you are to drop him!”

But during the remainder of the day she neither spoke to me nor looked, as far as I could tell, in my direction.  She flirted openly with Vail, rather, I thought, to the discomfort of Mrs. Johns, who had appropriated him to herself—­sang to him in the cabin, and in the long hour before dinner, when the others were dressing, walked the deck with him, talking earnestly.  They looked well together, and I believe he was in love with her.  Poor Vail!

Turner had gone below, grimly good-humored, to dress for dinner; and I went aft to chat, as I often did, with the steersman.  On this occasion it happened to be Charlie Jones.  Jones was not his name, so far as I know.  It was some inordinately long and different German inheritance, and so, with the facility of the average crew, he had been called Jones.  He was a benevolent little man, highly religious, and something of a philosopher.  And because I could understand German, and even essay it in a limited way, he was fond of me.

“Seta du dick,” he said, and moved over so that I could sit on the grating on which he stood.  “The sky is fine to-night.  Wunderschon!”

“It always looks good to me,” I observed, filling my pipe and passing my tobacco-bag to him.  “I may have my doubts now and then on land, Charlie; but here, between the sky and the sea, I’m a believer, right enough.”

“‘In the beginning He created the heaven and the earth,’” said Charlie reverently.

We were silent for a time.  The ship rolled easily; now and then she dipped her bowsprit with a soft swish of spray; a school of dolphins played astern, and the last of the land birds that had followed us out flew in circles around the masts.

“Sometimes,” said Charlie Jones, “I think the Good Man should have left it the way it was after the flood just sky and water.  What’s the land, anyhow?  Noise and confusion, wickedness and crime, robbing the widow and the orphan, eat or be et.”

“Well,” I argued, “the sea’s that way.  What are those fish out there flying for, but to get out of the way of bigger fish?”

Charlie Jones surveyed me over his pipe.

“True enough, youngster,” he said; “but the Lord’s given ’em wings to fly with.  He ain’t been so careful with the widow and the orphan.”

This statement being incontrovertible, I let the argument lapse, and sat quiet, luxuriating in the warmth, in the fresh breeze, in the feeling of bodily well-being that came with my returning strength.  I got up and stretched, and my eyes fell on the small window of the chart-room.

The door into the main cabin beyond was open.  It was dark with the summer twilight, except for the four rose-shaded candles on the table, now laid for dinner.  A curious effect it had—­the white cloth and gleaming pink an island of cheer in a twilight sea; and to and from this rosy island, making short excursions, advancing, retreating, disappearing at times, the oval white ship that was Williams’s shirt bosom.