Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/196

178 "Have you always been mate of the Celestine?" Kirk inquired.

"I have not," said Mr. Martin. "I signed aboard of her at Rio this trip, to get up into the Christian world again. I've been deckhand and seaman and mate on more vessels than I can count—in every part of the uncivilized world. I skippered one ship, even—pestilential tub that she was."

He fell silent after this speech, longer than any he had made so far.

"Then I'll get home," Kirk said. "Home. Can't we let 'em know, or anything? I suppose they've been worrying."

"I think it likely that they have," said the mate. "No, this ship's got no wireless. I'll send 'em a telegram when we dock to-morrow."

"Thank you," said Kirk. Then, after a long pause: "Oh, if you knew how awful it was out there."

"I know," said Mr. Martin.

The Celestine was bowling into Bedford Harbor with a fair wind. Kirk, in a reefer any number of sizes too large for him, sat on a hatch-coaming and drank in the flying wonder