"Are you bound for Table Bay?" asked Captain Stokes, and the obliging stranger said he was. In ten minutes it was all arranged, and the Nantucket's passengers were being transhipped to the Ocean Wave of a thousand tons register, belonging to London. Stokes went on board with the last boat, and shook hands with the master of the Ocean Wave.
"When you get in send a tug out to find us," said Stokes; "it's goin' to blow heavy in a while."
"I'll do it," said Captain Gray; "but are you sure that you won't come along?"
"I'd go under first," said Stokes; "I'll stick by her till I'm as old as the Flying Dutchman, and my beard is down to my knees."
It was very rash to say such things in the very cruising ground of Vanderdecken, and some of the crew of the Wave that heard it shivered. But Stokes was a hard case, and believed in nothing. He said good-bye to his passengers and went on board the Nantucket. The Ocean Wave boarded her maintack and stood on her course with her new crowd of passengers, who were very much delighted to be on board something that did not go to leeward like a butter-cask.
