The fine old sea-dog stood like a man to be shot at; and as Blythe faced him, kodak in hand, the breeze playing pranks with her hair and blowing her golf-cape straight back from her shoulders, it was all so exhilarating that before she knew it she had turned her little camera upon the supposed Hugh Dalton himself, who made an absurd grimace and told her to "let her go!"
It was always a delightful experience for Blythe to stand on the bridge and watch the ship's officers at their wonderful work of guiding the great sea-monster across the pathless deep. Here was the brain of the ship, as Mr. Grey had once pointed out, and to-day, when a sailor suddenly appeared above the gangway and, touching his hat, received a curt order,--"That is one of the nerves of the vessel," her companion said. "It carries the message of the brain to the furthest parts of the body."
"And I suppose the eyes are up there," Blythe returned, glancing at the "crow's nest," half-way up the great forward mast, where the two lookouts were keeping their steady watch.
"Yes," he rejoined, "that must be why they always have a pair of them,--so as to get a proper focus. _Nicht wahr, Herr Capitän?_"
And the little fiction was explained to the Captain, who grew more genial than ever under the stimulus of such agreeable conversation.
"_Ja wohl!_" he agreed, heartily; "_Ja wohl!_"--which was really quite an outburst of eloquence for Captain Seemann.
"If I couldn't be captain," Blythe announced, "I think I should choose to be lookout."
"It must be the best place of all, away up above everything and everybody."
Upon which the Captain, in high good-humour, declared, "I belief you!"
After that he fell to speaking German with Mr. Grey, and Blythe moved to the end of the bridge, and stood looking down upon the steerage passengers, where they were disporting themselves in the sun on the lower deck.
They were a motley crew, and she never tired of watching them, as they sat about in picturesque groups, singing or playing games, or lay stretched on the deck, fast asleep.
Somewhat apart from the others was a woman with a little girl whom Blythe had not before observed. The child lay on a bright shawl, her head against the woman's knee, her dark Italian eyes gazing straight up into the luminous blue of the sky. There was a curiously high-bred look in the pale features, young and unformed as they were, and Blythe wondered how such a child as that came to belong to the stout, middle-aged woman who did not herself seem altogether out of place in the rough steerage.