Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/136

 haggard than did any of his men. Only the Chinaman, glancing sideways with his slanting, beady eyes at the lusty green of the little pine, seemed to suspect why. They were like the flitting ghosts of a ship's crew that morning when the hot, glittering expanse of sea was broken by a wavering line on the horizon and the lookout's husky call of "Land-ho" announced the low green shore of Maryland. Eighteen days from Gibraltar and all records broken at last!

She came into the Susquehanna River for repairs, did the worn but triumphant West Wind, and Jonathan Adams came rowing out to board her, his sober face for once all wreathed in smiles.

"By five days you shortened the voyage," he said, "and I had not really hoped for more than four. I always said she was not a tub, but a real ship at last. There will be others like her, and her children's children will dare to spread such sail that they will cross the Atlantic in half your time."

As Humphrey came up the ladder to where Miranda was waiting on the wharf, his first words were— "I left the snuffbox behind," while she, laughing shakily, answered—

"I knew you would."

The whole crew, down to the cabin boy, were hailed as heroes when they left the ship, but there