Soon after daylight the Prince Martin Bukaty came on deck, gay and lively in his borrowed oilskins.  His blue eyes laughed in the shadow of the black sou’wester tied down over his eyes, his slight form was lost in the ample folds of Captain Petersen’s best oilskin coat.

“It remains to be seen,” he said, peering out into the rain and spray, “whether that little man will come to us in this.”

“He will come,” said Captain Petersen.

Prince Martin Bukaty laughed.  He laughed at most things—­at the timidity and caution of this Norse captain, at good weather, at bad weather, at life as he found it.  He was one of those few and happy people who find life a joy and his fellow-being a huge joke.  Some will say that it is easy enough to be gay at the threshold of life; but experience tells that gayety is an inward sun which shines through all the changes and chances of a journey which has assuredly more bad weather than good.  The gayest are not those who can be pointed out as the happiest.  Indeed, the happiest are those who appear to have nothing to make them happy.  Martin Bukaty might, for instance, have chosen a better abode than the stuffy cabin of a Scandinavian cargo-boat and cheerier companions than a grim pair of Norse seamen.  He might have sought a bluer sky and a bluer sea, and yet he stood on the dripping deck and laughed.  He clapped Captain Petersen on the back.

“Well, we have got here and we have ridden out the worst of it, and we haven’t dragged our anchors and nobody has seen us, and that exceedingly amusing little captain will be here in a few hours.  Why look so gloomy, my friend?”

Captain Petersen shook the rain from the brim of his sou’wester.

“We are putting our necks within a rope,” he said.

“Not your neck—­only mine,” replied Martin.  “It is a necktie that one gets accustomed to.  Look at my father!  One rarely sees an old man so free from care.  How he laughs!  How he enjoys his dinner and his wine!  The wine runs down a man’s throat none the less pleasantly because there is a loose rope around it.  And he has played a dangerous game all his life—­that old man, eh?”

“It is all very well for you,” said Captain Petersen, gravely, turning his gloomy eyes towards his companion.  “A prince does not get shot or hanged or sent to the bottom in the high seas.”

“Ah! you think that,” said Prince Martin, momentarily grave.  “One can never tell.”

Then he broke into a laugh.

“Come!” he said, “I am going aloft to look for that English boat.  Come on to the fore-yard.  We can watch him come in—­that little bulldog of a man.”

“If he has any sense he will wait in the open until this gale is over,” grumbled Petersen, nevertheless following his companion forward.

“He has only one sense, that man—­a sense of infinite fearlessness.”

“He is probably afraid—­” Captain Petersen paused to hoist himself laboriously on to the rail.