Page:Solo (1924).pdf/141

 thumbed his nose. He found the mate pacing the poop, but didn't dare ask all the questions in his mind, lest he be thought childish.

The next few hours passed slowly, but with dawn came the sight so eagerly awaited—a low, slate-black shadow dividing the sky from an ocean all mother-of-pearl. At six o'clock Paul took tea to the captain's room, and two hours later, when he went forward with the basket, the sun had dispelled the shadows, the water had become a yellowish jade, and the coast was revealed in a sand-coloured stretch, patched with green hollows. White clouds hovered over the hills, and everything was bathed in gold. The Clytemnestra had ceased to represent the boundaries of the world, and was now a mere insect crawling painfully over a wrinkled pool. The captain peered through his telescope at a blob of smoke.

"It's a tug already," remarked the mate as he came down to breakfast. "We'll be alongside by noon."

Paul contrived to be on deck when the tow-boat approached within hailing distance. He had never seen a sight more exhilarating than this sturdy tug as she reared and coughed and wallowed in the green waves, belching forth smoke. She was intensely alive, and her personality was not unlike that of an officious sheepdog.

Thanks to the fair wind, which would have enabled him to sail to the very mouth of the Swan river, the old man drove a sharp bargain with the captain of the tow-boat. To Paul's astonishment his first question, when terms had been settled by the aid of a megaphone, was as to the outcome of "the war." The old man seemed unaccountably pleased that somebody had licked somebody else. Paul had not even known they were fighting; but he was tremendously interested in the discovery that Australians—judging from the captain of the tow-boat—said "sile" for sail.