In this quiet, methodical way life went on with the occupants of the saloon for some time; but at length ambition entered into and seized upon the imagination of Miss Stanhope, and she determined to learn to steer. Hour after hour had she watched the helmsmen standing in more or less graceful attitudes at the wheel, with their sinewy hands upon the spokes, now drawing them gently toward them a few inches only to push them as far away again a minute or two later. It looked ridiculously easy; yet there was grandeur in the thought that, by these simple, effortless movements, the destiny of the ship and all within her was to a large extent controlled. There was something almost sublime, to her imagination, in the ability to “guide the furrowing keel on its way along the trackless deep,” as she expressed it to herself; and she determined she would learn how to do it.
At length, making her way up on the poop one glorious evening after dinner—the ship being at the time about in the latitude of Madeira, and close-hauled on the starboard tack, with a nice little eight-knot breeze blowing, and everything set that would draw, from the skysail down, and with the water as smooth as it ever is under such circumstances—she descried Ned standing aft at the wheel, with his left arm resting on its rim, his right hand lightly grasping a spoke at arm’s-length, and his eye on the weather leach of the main-skysail, as he softly hummed to himself the air of a song she had sung a night or two before; and the young lady at once arrived at the conclusion that this afforded an excellent opportunity for her to take her first lesson. So she walked aft, and opened the negotiations by saying:
“Good evening, Ned.” (Everybody on board, fore and aft, called the lad Ned; so she naturally did the same.)
“Good evening, Miss Stanhope,” replied Ned, straightening himself up and doffing his cap with a sweep which would not have disgraced a—a—well, let us say, a Frenchman; “what splendid weather we are having! Here is another glorious evening, with every prospect of the breeze lasting, and perhaps freshening a bit when the sun goes down. If it only holds for forty-eight hours longer I hope it will run us fairly into the trades.”
“I hope it will, I am sure,” said Miss Stanhope, “if ‘running fairly into the trades’ is going to do us any good. I presume you are referring to the trade winds, about which Captain Blyth has been talking during dinner.”
“Precisely,” acknowledged Ned.
“Could you not tie that wheel, and sit down comfortably, instead of standing there holding it as you are doing?” inquired Sibylla, by way of leading up gradually to the proposal she intended to make.
Ned laughed. “It looks as though one might as well do so,” he said. “But you’ve no idea how capricious a ship is. I’ve not moved the wheel for the last ten minutes, and look how straight our wake is. Yet, if I were to lash this wheel exactly as it is now, it would not be half a minute before the ship would be shooting up into the wind.”
“How very curious!” remarked Sibylla. “And yet, so long as you hold the wheel the ship goes perfectly straight. How do you account for that?”
“I watch her,” answered Ned, “and the moment I detect a disposition to deviate from the right course I check her with a movement of the wheel. The slightest touch is sufficient in such fine weather as we are having at present.”
“I see,” remarked the young lady. “The ship is as obedient to her guide as a well-trained child. And it seems easy enough to guide her. I believe I could do it myself.”
“Certainly you could. Would you like to try?” said Ned, who at length fancied he could see the drift of his fair interlocutor’s remarks.
“I should very much,” answered Miss Stanhope. “But I did not like to ask, fearing that such a request would be a transgression against nautical etiquette.”
“By no means,” said Ned. “Captain Blyth is one of the most gallant of men; he would never dream of opposing so very reasonable a desire on the part of a lady—at least, not now, when no possible harm can come of it. If you will take my place on this raised grating, I shall be delighted to initiate you into the art. This side, please—the helmsman always stands on the weather side. That is right. Now grasp this spoke with your left hand, and this with your right, so—that is precisely the right attitude. Now, you feel a slight tremor in the wheel, do you not? That indicates that the water is pressing gently against the rudder—the ship carries a small weather-helm, as a well-modelled and properly rigged ship should—and if you were to release the wheel it would move a spoke or two to the right, and the ship would run up into the wind. Now, at present we are steering ‘full and by,’ which means that we are to steer as near the wind as possible, and at the same time to keep all the sails full. You see that small sail right at the top of all on the mainmast? That is the main-skysail. It is braced a shade less fore and aft than the other sails; so if you keep it full you will be certain to also have all the rest of the canvas full. Now you will observe an occasional gentle flapping movement of the weather leach of that sail—the edge of it, I mean. That indicates that the sail is just full and no more; and you must keep your eye on that weather leach and maintain just precisely that gentle flapping movement. If it ceases, the sail is unnecessarily full, and you are not keeping a good ‘luff,’ and you must turn the wheel a shade to the right; if it increases, you are sailing rather too near the wind, and must press the wheel a trifle to the left. Do you understand me?”
“I think so,” answered Sibylla, compressing her lips, grasping the spokes tightly, and concentrating her whole attention upon the weather leach of the skysail.
She proved an apt pupil; and though for the first ten minutes or so the course of the ship was a trifle erratic, and steering in a straight line proved to be not quite so simple and easy a matter as she had deemed it, Miss Sibylla soon caught the knack, and at the end of half an hour the Flying Cloud was making as straight a wake again as though the best helmsman in the ship had her in hand.
“Why, this is splendid!” exclaimed Ned. “You are evidently a born helmsman—or helmswoman, rather—Miss Stanhope. Permit me to congratulate you on your success. Not a man in the ship could do better than you are now doing. I foresee that, before long, whenever any extra fine steering has to be done, we shall have to request you to take the wheel.”
“Thank you; that is a very neatly turned compliment,” remarked Sibylla. “But I am afraid I do not wholly deserve it. For the last five minutes I have been steering, not by the little sail up there, as you told me, but by that small dark object right ahead. It is so much easier—”
“Small dark object! where away?” interrupted Ned. “Ah! I see it. Sail ho! right ahead Mr. Bryce,” he reported to the chief-mate.
The mate, who was sitting smoking on a hen-coop, to leeward, close to the break of the poop, rose slowly to his feet, walked to the weather side of the deck, and, shading his eyes with his hand, looked ahead, but was apparently unable to see anything.
“There she is, just over the weather cat-head!” exclaimed Ned, as he placed himself in line with the mate.
“All right! I see her,” responded the mate, as he at length caught sight of the small purple-grey spot on the south-western horizon, and he sauntered back to his seat.
At this moment Captain Blyth made his appearance on the poop. “Did I hear a sail reported ahead, Mr. Bryce?” he asked, as he reached the poop.
“Very likely. There is one,” answered the mate, without offering to point her out.
Captain Blyth looked annoyed at this boorishness of speech and conduct, but it