Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/31

 plates below her water-line, the gilded figure that bent above her keen, clipper bows. He had dreamed her and built her; now he was to sail her. Couldn't he, wondered his great-granddaughter, spare a word of the pride and contentment he must have felt to write in the stiff old log? And Jane could see the moon-sail, floating nebulous, high, high above the starlit expanse of the other sails. The Gloria had no moonsail; few ships had at that time. She was the other Ingram-vessel, older, steadier than the Fortune and less beautiful, but a noble ship and one that had toiled long to win those Ingram fortunes now dwindled and lost.

On the day that the Fortune of the Indies first sailed, Grandfather Mark was eight years old. Jane had calculated this for herself. By frequent reference to the family Bible and comparison with the log-books she was able, by this time, to state offhand the age of any Ingram at the time of any cruise. She wondered if he had stood there with great-grandmother on the wharf, watching the new ship drop down to the harbor mouth with the tide, watching her great sails one by one soaring into place, watching the farewell dip of the red burgee as