"You hardened old liar! It's all your fault, stuffing her head with your fool yarns."
"No, Señor Capitan, by Nostra Señora de la Caradid"
"For the love of Heaven, forget some of your saints!"
"Never mind, Dick, he doesn't mean it. It wasn't his fault, Nunkie,—I saw the chart."
The Captain's mouth opened and shut twice, as if about to swear, or say something of the sort. But, shaking his head over this fantastic proposal of the young lunatics—he said nothing.
It was Sally's opportunity now and she used it with all her witchery. She told her story, and pled, and persisted, and teased, with soft words and the softer arguments of her young arms around his neck, which he never could resist. So of course he yielded and granted the three days of grace, a little grudgingly.
Then he turned his back on them, and his eyes, blue as the waters where the icebergs float, but infinitely kinder, twinkled, and the lips over the auburn beard puckered in a whistle. He had discovered something. A little boy he had thought dead long ago was alive. Alive! although he was quite invisible to their young eyes and clamouring vociferously to be satisfied.
That boy was right. What was the use of dreary voyages around the Horn in search of sordid merchandise, when there was treasure close at hand. It didn't matter whether they found it or not. The hunt's the thing!
After all a man can be twenty-one again—or fourteen, if he will.
