“They used to take that precaution.”

“With those eyes?  It was murder!” She withdrew her hand and sat down.

“Well, they only catch them, now.  I tried it myself once.  I set out at low tide, about ten o’clock, one night, and got between the water and the biggest seal on the bank.  We fought it out on that line till daylight.”

“And did you get it?” she demanded, absurdly interested.

“No, it got me.  The tide came in, and the seal beat.”

“I am glad of that.”

“Thank you.”

“What did you want with it?”

“I don’t think I wanted it at all.  At any rate, that’s what I always said.  I shall have to ask you to sit on this side,” he added, loosening the sheet and preparing to shift the sail.  “The wind has backed round a little more to the south, and it’s getting lighter.”

“If it’s going down we shall be late,” she said, with an intimation of apprehension.

“We shall be at Leyden on time.  If the wind falls then, I can get a horse at the stable and have you driven back.”

“Well.”

He kept scanning the sky.  Then, “Did you ever hear them whistle for a wind?” he asked.

“No.  What is it like?”

“When Adams does it, it’s like this.”  He put on a furtive look, and glanced once or twice at her askance.  “Well!” he said with the reproduction of a strong nasal, “of course I don’t believe there’s anything in it.  Of course it’s all foolishness.  Now you must urge me a little,” he added, in his own manner.

“Oh, by all means go on, Mr. Adams,” she cried, with a laugh.

He rolled his head again to one side sheepishly.

“Well, I don’t presume it does have anything to do with the wind—­well, I don’t presume it does.”  He was silent long enough to whet an imagined expectation; then he set his face towards the sky, and began a soft, low, coaxing sibilation between his teeth.  “S-s-s-s; s-s-s-s-s-s!  Well, it don’t stand to reason it can bring the wind—­S-s-s-s-s-s-s; s-s-s-s.  Why, of course it ’s all foolishness.  S-s-s-s.”  He continued to emit these sibilants, interspersing them with Adams’s protests.  Suddenly the sail pulled the loose sheet taut and the boat leaped forward over the water.

“Wonderful!” cried the girl.

“That’s what I said to Adams, or words to that effect.  But I thought we should get it from the look of the sky before I proposed to whistle for it.  Now, then,” he continued, “I will be serious, if you like.”

“Serious?”

“Yes.  Didn’t you ask me to be serious just before those seals interrupted you?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, coloring a little.  “I don’t think we can go back to that, now.”  He did not insist, and she said presently, “I thought the sailors had a superstition about ships that are lucky and unlucky.  But you’ve kept your boat”

“I kept her for luck:  the lightning never strikes twice in the same place.  And I never saw a boat that behaved so well.”