The room was dark. Jane lighted the candle on the secretary and curled herself into the smooth seat of the desk-chair. She knew just which one of the battered log-books she wanted, and she drew it from among the others and opened it. Cramped old writing in yellowed ink, deciphered by candle-light, does not make easy reading, but Jane was well used to this.
June 3, 1841. This day 12 m set sail for the Indies and China in my new ship the Fortune of the Indies. Light air S. by E. 2 p. m. ordered all sail set, inclusive of the moonsail—that which the Gloria has not. Lost Kennico Light 5:29 p. m. Breeze freshening from the S. The ship is handy, it appears.
And that was the beginning of the first cruise of the Fortune of the Indies. And all that he could say of her, this Great-grandfather Mark of few words, was that she "appeared handy." She, the first clipper ship that had ever sailed from Resthaven; a dream of wonder, from the red burgee that floated above her main truck, shimmering down through spaces of new, sunlit canvas and mazy rigging to the spotless decks; the bright, black hull, the burnished flash of the copper
