Noon.

The famous promenade was deserted, and all the foreigners who were able were safe in the coolest retirement of their little pink and white villas. A warm off-shore breeze wandered through the silent streets of Nice, came to the water-front, and there, as if alarmed by the noise and bustle of the few sailors and fishermen whom the heat had not driven from the quays, grew brisker and fled away southward over the sea.

Down one of the smaller streets between the HÔtel des Anglais and the Porta Vecchia, Mrs. Fairhew and her niece, escorted by Jack, were making their way. Miss Marchfield, dressed in a simple gown of white, looked deliciously rosy under her red sunshade. Mrs. Fairhew walked in the narrow strip of shadow next the wall; Katrine was between her and Jack, who, owing to the straitness of the sidewalk, picked his way—to the evident amusement of Miss Marchfield—along the kennel. As Katrine was fond of him, she paradoxically took unfailing delight in seeing him humiliated, always provided, of course, that no one other than herself was the author of the discomfort. The three were nearing the water-front when the elder lady broke a silence of some minutes' duration.

"I hope the yacht is not very much farther, Mr. Castleport," she ventured.

"No," Jack answered, "she's at the foot of the next street. 'Twas awfully stupid of me not to have got hold of a fiacre, but it seems so short a distance for me to walk that I didn't think."

"I wonder why a yacht is always she and her," observed Katrine. "Why not it?"

"Oh, the reason's plain enough," was Jack's answer. "Yachts have two characteristics that are thoroughly feminine,—caprice and beauty."

"It is good of you to temper the aspersion on my sex with a compliment," Katrine returned.

"It is obliging in me," Jack assented; "but politeness requires that I should stretch a point, since you are my guest."

"I am sorry to put you to the inconvenience," she said.

"Of being polite? Thank you!"

"Do you know, I'm sorry that your uncle is not here, Mr. Castleport," said Mrs. Fairhew, as they turned the corner. "It is all very well to have an old woman for a chaperon, but it is rather hard on you and Mr. Taberman not to have some older man to talk to me."

"Oh, you mustn't depreciate your charm at the expense of your age," Jack cried.

"Very pretty," laughed Mrs. Fairhew; "but your uncle"—

"Ouch!" exclaimed Jack, making a fine show of stubbing the toe of his rubber-soled shoe against a projecting paving-stone.

"What did you say?" inquired Katrine, with an air of mild interest.

"Nothing. I stubbed my toe on that beastly stone," answered Jack, with a feeling of satisfaction that the President was once more shelved. "Now," he added, "the boat is just here."

A small but motley crowd was scattered along the water-front: bronzed fishermen, with close-cropped hair and long earrings, carrying osier baskets of shining sardines from their boats to their little carts; fat, raucous-voiced women, with red or yellow scarves pinned across their bosoms; lean-shanked 'longshoremen, too old for the sea this many a day; brown sailors, picking their way among the piles of iridescent fish,—liver-colored squid and flabby octopi; half-naked boys, outrageous and beautiful; with a miscellaneous sprinkling of human flotsam and jetsam, as if the sea had cast them up battered and damaged. Over all floated a distracting hubbub, made up of the rattling of cart-wheels on the flags, the shrill cries of the venders, the calls of the lads, the songs of the fishermen, and a medley of oaths, jests, curses, directions, questions, and all sorts of vociferous shoutings.

Both the ladies drew closer to Jack, who, masterfully making his way through the press, piloted them across the quay. At the landing-steps they found Jerry and the Merle's cutter, the object of the staring curiosity and admiration of the wharf-rats and the loungers of the docks.

"Good-morning, Mr. Taberman. Have we kept you waiting long?" asked Mrs. Fairhew.

Tab had been broiling for half an hour, but was too courteous to say so. He responded cheerily, then helped the ladies aboard, and established them in the sheets. Jack took the tiller-lines, word was given, and the men fell to pulling. The breeze was fresher and cooler on the water; it made the ripples dance and glitter in the sunshine, and kept playfully curling the ensign at the stern of the cutter about Jack's head. According to previous instructions, the watch on the Merle got up anchor on seeing the cutter leave the quay, and were now holding the yacht in the wind's eye. When the boat came alongside, the ladies were handed aboard, the guest-salute was fired, the cutter was hoisted to the davits, and the yacht was paid off.

They ran out past the old battery and the lighthouse on the outer mole, and coasted along to the westward. In the bright sunlight the numerous dwellings—villas, hotels, and pensions—showing among the green foliage of the trees looked very gay and attractive. The sea was dimpled with laughter. The breeze, although it gave promise of freshening, was now only strong enough to make the schooner, which was carrying all sail, heel gracefully as she slipped along. The day was perfect for light sailing.

At one o'clock old Gonzague, his linen jacket dazzling in its whiteness and his snowy hair brushed back from his high forehead, served luncheon. Jack sat by Mrs. Fairhew on the starboard side, with Katrine and Jerry opposite. Gonzague had outdone himself for the occasion. A ProvenÇal by birth, he knew the culinary value of all the wares—to foreign eyes so puzzlingly useless and hopelessly inedible—displayed in Mediterranean markets. The dishes which appeared on the table made Jack and Tab stare: fresh sardines broiled and served with some mysterious sauce of which they tried in vain to guess the ingredients; something which Katrine pronounced delicious until she discovered it to be cuttlefish, and then could not be prevailed upon to taste further; a salad which had lettuce as its obvious foundation, but which was fragrant with a dozen strange and piquant herbs; ripe citrons and limes; figs and bullaces; and a wonderful fruity sherbet for dessert.

"Do you generally fare like this on board the Merle?" Mrs. Fairhew inquired. "If you do, I should like to come here to board while you are in harbor."

"Not much," returned Jerry bluntly. "This is all Gonzague's gallantry to you ladies. As a rule he gives us only pork and beans."

"Dear me," she commented. "That's pretty hard fare."

"Do you really have to live on pork and beans on a cruise?" asked Katrine.

"Jerry was only speaking figuratively," explained Jack, with a laugh. "Of course we do better than that. The only time we really suffered was in a bit of a shake-up we had on the way over. The second week out we had a blow, and had to live on hardtack and coffee for three days."

"And Gonzague must have stood on his head to make the coffee, too," put in Tab.

"Was it really so bad as that?" asked Katrine. "I mean," she explained as the others laughed, "did it really blow so hard he couldn't cook things?"

"Well," responded Taberman, "for forty hours we had it so hard we jolly well thought we'd have to cut."

"Cut?" queried Mrs. Fairhew.

"Yes, the sticks, you know," Jack explained.

From the expression on her face it was abundantly evident that the lady did not know, but she said nothing. She had but the most casual acquaintance with nautical affairs, and made no pretense of understanding the speech of mariners; and she was always willing to let a matter of this sort go, rather than to submit to a lengthy exposition.

Katrine, on the other hand, while of course not proficient in the art of handling yachts, knew enough to appreciate that when cutting away the masts had been contemplated, things must have been at a pass really dangerous. Now she made no comment, but she gave a swift glance at Jack, that had in it much of the admiration which Desdemona felt at the recital of the perils through which Othello had borne himself bravely. Jack happened to catch her eye; she flushed and turned to Jerry.

"Don't you tire of it all?" she asked. "I should think that to have the monotony broken only by danger in which you can't have any rest or comfort would be dreadfully wearisome."

"Oh, it's great sport!" cried Tab heartily. "Besides, you know, there are no end of things to do."

"Such as what?" inquired Mrs. Fairhew. "I've always found the ocean voyage the most boresome thing about traveling, although I'm a perfectly good sailor."

"Oh," said Jerry, with a flourish of his cigarette,—for coffee had been served and the ladies had permitted smoking,—"there are rope-ends to be attended to, and gear changed, and all that sort of thing, besides seeing that the men go over the brasswork properly every day; and there is taking sights, and making reckonings, and all sorts of things."

"But I thought the men did all the work on the ropes and things."

"So they do," Jack said, with a smile; "but it is our business to tell them what to do and to see that they do it. You must remember that we are the ship's officers."

"We have to look things over all the time," Jerry added. "Just before we went ashore to-day I saw a thing that'll have to be attended to as soon as we get back at anchor. The fore-peak halyards are 'most chafed through where they reeve through the block on the cap."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Fairhew. "Is it dangerous?"

"Not in the least dangerous," Jack returned reassuringly. "Is it really bad, Tab?"

"Oh, well, I fancy it'll hold; leastways if there's no sudden strain on it. The rope's new enough; but it jammed there the other day, you remember."

"Well, let's go on deck," suggested the captain. "It's such a gorgeous day, it's a shame to miss any of it."

On coming up they found that the wind had so freshened that the fore-topsail and staysail had been struck, as well as the outer jib.

"We can run on till about four o'clock," Castleport said, "and have plenty of time to run back with this wind."

They still held to the westward, keeping about a mile off shore, now and then passing fishing craft, headed for Nice, their big lateen sails shining in the sunlight. Jack, watching Katrine keenly, read her delight and enjoyment in her eyes, and could see how she responded to the beauty of the day, the picturesqueness of the shore, the exhilaration of the wind, and the sparkling sea. At eight bells they had tea au Russe on deck, and before they had finished drinking it the Merle was put about and headed for the harbor.

They had hardly gone a knot before they fell in with a large black yawl flying the English colors and the burgee of the Royal Yacht Squadron. She was sailing easily along under all lower canvas, her black hull lifting gracefully over the sloping seas at about two cable-lengths ahead. She was in cruising rig, with no boom to her mainsail, yet was so large that her spread of canvas was at half a glance much greater than that of the Merle. She crossed the schooner's bows, and then, luffing occasionally, waited until the American yacht was on her beam.

"Looks's though she wanted something of us," remarked Jerry. "Will you take another look at her, Miss Marchfield?" And he handed her the glasses.

"She is a beauty!" exclaimed Katrine, regarding the yawl through the binoculars. "I can see her name now. I-s-i-s Isis, of—of Plymouth. Don't you want to look at her, Aunt Anne?"

Mrs. Fairhew took the glasses with the air of a person doing a favor, and stared at the yawl in a perfunctory manner.

"What an absurd bobtail of a sail that is set 'way back," she observed. "It looks quite like a deformity."

"That's for balance in heavy weather," said Jerry, with gusto. "Hadn't we better salute, Jack?"

"I suppose so," was the answer. "See; he's fallen off. Means to give us a run for it, I fancy."

The Merle dipped her ensign, and the Englishman returned the salute in kind.

"I say," cried Jerry, "they're setting their topsail. They want a race in earnest."

"They've an able boat, to carry all sail when it's breezed up like this," commented Jack, giving the black yawl a critical look.

"Come!" urged Tab. "Let's take a brace and give 'em a run for their money. We can beat 'em all right enough, both sides of the Atlantic."

Jack looked first at Katrine and then at her aunt.

"Would you mind?" he asked.

"Mind?" cried Mrs. Fairhew, "I shouldn't mind it the least in the world—especially if we beat them."

"All right," shouted Tab, leaping boyishly out of his wicker chair. "We'll show 'em! Watch along!" he roared to the crew.

"Sway up on the main-peak halyards there," sang out Jack, who had also started up quickly. "That's good! Fore-peak now—that'll do! Set fore-topsail there—haul away! Good enough! All hands up to windward!" Then he turned to the helmsman. "I'll take her," he said. "You get up to windward with the rest."

The man handed the helm over to him, and the race began.

The yawl was on the windward beam, and both she and the schooner were carrying so much sail as now and again to be heeled lee rail under. At the end of twenty minutes the American boat seemed to be drawing ahead, although the Englishman, his red flag blowing out from his maintop, was still to windward.

Katrine and her aunt had abandoned their chairs for the weather transom of the cockpit. Katrine was thoroughly alive to the excitement of this impromptu contest, while Mrs. Fairhew's well-bred face wore a smile which might be taken to signify either her superiority to such a youthful means of enjoyment or confidence in the power of the Merle to outstrip her rival.

Jack, his strong, shapely hands grasping the spokes of the wheel, glanced only from the sails aloft to the yawl and back again. Katrine watched him furtively. His keen, eager pose, wholly free from self-consciousness and suggestive of power and vigilant activity, his masterful management of his craft,—she noted them all, and felt a certain pleasure in them, as if in some way she were responsible for them.

"Think we'll come 'round, Jerrold," said the captain.

He gave a rapid succession of orders as he twirled the spokes to port. The Merle came about on the other tack, the men got to stations on the weather side, and the ladies changed their places.

"Now we'll see how much we've gained on them," said Jerry, half to the guests and half to himself.

They drove toward the shore in the roughening sea, the port runway being now covered with a thin sheet of hissing green water. Up forward an occasional wave would come slap against the yacht's shoulder with a sound like a rifle-shot. The Isis crossed their bows at a distance so little ahead of them that her name and hail could be read easily without the aid of a glass.

"We're outfooting them, Jack. We'll have 'em cold in twenty minutes!" cried Tab enthusiastically.

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," laughed Katrine.

"Oh, but we can't help doing 'em," he responded. "We'll have 'em so walloped that they'll go into dry-dock for a month."

"You'd better rap on wood, Mr. Taberman," cautioned Mrs. Fairhew, with a smile. "I don't wish to be a croaking raven, but surely they're ahead now."

Mrs. Fairhew had, as the race went on, grown more and more alert. Her eyes had in them the spark of a genuine lover of sport, and all the womanly love of contest and conquest showed in the eagerness of her pose and air.

"Of course they're ahead," Jerry answered; "but we have the wind of them by a good deal."

"I hope that means something," the lady commented, with a movement of the head half eager, half humorous, "but I confess that it is all Greek to me."

Jerry began to explain, but before he could make things clear to the lady's unnautical mind, the yacht came about again to the port tack. The Merle was then so far to weather of the yawl that Jack ordered the sheets to be started a trifle.

"Now then, Jerry, here's where we overhaul them," Jack cried exultingly. "Just set the balloon-jib outside the headsails. I think she'll stand it."

"Want the staysail?" asked the mate.

"No—'twould spoil her helm," returned the captain. "Jump along, old man."

The change was effected as quickly as might be, and the yacht's speed was visibly increased.

"That yawl's better on the wind than off," the captain commented. "We're picking up on 'em now like smoke."

After an hour's chase and half an hour's jockeying off the mouth of the port, the Merle was about to run in when the English yacht luffed up and crossed the schooner's bows. Both boats were close-hauled, but the American was on the starboard tack and had the right of way. The helmsman of the Isis gave Jack his choice of running the yawl down or luffing himself. Jack chose the latter alternative; although naturally angry at such an unsportsmanlike trick, he could not take risks with his uncle's yacht, least of all with the ladies on board. The Englishman did not spare him, but first blanketed him, and then, putting his helm up and leaving the Merle with a small ledge frothing to leeward, forced the schooner about. Under his tan Jack grew white with indignant anger. He was not the man to lose his temper in his pastimes, but he had a strong sense of justice, a thorough contempt for trickery, and he was quick to resent a deliberate outrage of this sort. The performance was so evidently premeditated on the part of the Isis that it amounted to a most flagrant insult, a cold-blooded piece of sporting caddishness. The only remedy possible under the circumstances was a desperate one, but in his state of mind he did not hesitate.

"Stand by to jibe!" he roared. "Cast off the topsail halyards! Now aft on the sheets!"

It was blowing too hard for jibing with safety even under reduced cloth, and barring staysail and topsails, the Merle was under full canvas.

"My God!" exclaimed Jerry to the winds, as he tumbled aft to help on the sheet, "he'll pull the sticks out of her! Something's bound to go!"

Jack held the wheel hard up, and the schooner swung steadily off. The booms rushed over the decks, fetched up with a crash, and then swung out as the men payed off the sheets. The lee rail went clean under, and for a second or two unpleasant and portentous creakings and groanings filled the air. The men flew about with wonderful dexterity, while the two ladies held on to each other to avoid being pitched headlong.

"Are any of your teeth shaken out, Katrine?" Mrs. Fairhew inquired, when they were able once more to sit up. "All mine were loosened by that awful jerk."

"They are all safe, Aunt Anne," Katrine cried, her voice vibrant with delighted excitement. "Isn't it splendid?"

Her hair was blowing about her face, her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed; and Jack, though his swift glance merely caught a view of her as it flashed up to the sails, carried the alluring picture in his mind for many a day. The thought of it was for the time being instantly crowded out of his mind as he caught sight of the rigging. As the Merle had leaped ahead, the fore-peak halyards, which had not been started before the yacht was jibed, had parted. The gaff hung nearly at right angles to the boom, and the sail was being strained out of shape. The captain was so upset that in his rage he was guilty of swearing before ladies.

"What shall we do?" sang out Jerry.

Jack's cry had called his attention to the mishap, and he had run forward.

"Really this grows exciting," remarked Mrs. Fairhew, as if she were at the theatre.

"Oh, what a shame! what a shame!" wailed Katrine, looking despairingly up at the drooping gaff.

"Get some half-inch on it!" shouted Jack, almost beside himself at having been bullied into this predicament. "Take it out as far as you can! Reeve it through the cap-block first. Move along there! Smartly!"

"All right!" cried Tab; and in the same moment, with a coil of new rope over his shoulder, and followed by one of the men, he ran up the weather rigging.

On reaching the cross-trees, Tab passed the end of his rope through the block on the masthead cap and fastened it to his belt. Then he swung himself down to the jaws of the gaff and lay out along the spar. The big stick threshed about wildly, threatening to snap him into the sea at every fling. Slowly and painfully he worked his way out. He clung on desperately, so that it seemed like a conscious fight between himself and the plunging spar whether he should be shaken off. It was like a man's trying to tame a bucking horse, only a hundred times more exciting, and Katrine grew pale as she watched, while even Mrs. Fairhew set her lips closely. The three minutes it took Jerry to reach the peak-halyard block seemed to every person on the Merle all but interminable. Twice he nearly fell,—once at the outset when he slipped, and again when he had to crawl around the throat halyards between rolls. The second time he was actually thrown off the spar, but fortunately he held his grip on the halyards. The next lurch of the yacht playfully tossed him into the air, and he was lucky enough to regain his position on the spar.

Getting to the peak-block, he unknotted the rope from his belt, passed it about the spar, and took a "timber-hitch." He then slowly worked his way back, and eventually reached the cross-trees in safety. The nervous tension had been so strong that when the men saw him coming down the ratlines they fell to cheering lustily, Gonzague, his white hair ruffled by the wind, waving his arms and out-shouting the whole of them. They speedily got hold of the jury halyard, and even before Jerry had reached the deck, the gaff was again well raised, and the topsail set.

In the mean time the Isis had in her turn got into difficulties. It is poor business jockeying among reefs, and the yawl had been forced to come about, luff up, and drift sternwards until her chances of beating the Merle were utterly gone. The fact seemed to be that the English captain had counted upon the Merle's not daring to jibe, and so had been too clever by half.

Jerry came aft, very red in the face, and with the customary twinkle in his eye. The ladies were evidently greatly impressed by his feat, and Jack, who of course understood more clearly than they how dangerous the task had been, took one hand off the wheel and wrung Jerry's.

"Awfully sorry, old man," he said. "But I was so hot at that Englishman I lost my head for a minute."

"Oh, go 'long!" returned Jerry, grinning. "Don't you suppose I was hot myself?"

He dropped on to a seat beside Mrs. Fairhew, to recover his breath.

"Mr. Taberman," said that lady, "I'm an old woman,"—it was one of Mrs. Fairhew's idiosyncrasies to call attention thus whimsically to the fact that she looked hardly more than thirty,—"I'm an old woman, and consequently I disapprove of rashness; but I don't mind saying that I like your pluck."

She looked at him in a curious way, as if he were an amusing case of arrested development, but her glance was full of kindliness.

"Thank you," Tab answered, with a smile which was too confused not to be almost a grin. "It's more a sound wind than pluck, I assure you."

"It was perfectly magnificent!" Katrine cried. "You're a perfect hero!"

They all laughed, more perhaps from the nervous reaction after the strain than from any especial amusement, and Jerry blushed more than ever.

"I'm afraid you're inclined to make a mountain out of a molehill," he said. "We don't allow heroics aboard here, you know. Jack did the only"—

"That'll do, Jerry," called Jack from the wheel.

"All right, captain," Tab returned, laughing. "Under orders."

"Oh, but that's not fair," cried Katrine. "If Mr. Castleport played the hero too, we want to know all about it."

"I'll masthead that mate if he goes on talking about his superior officer," Jack threatened. "See, the Isis has given the whole thing up."

"She'd better," commented Jerry, "though I don't see that she had anything left to give."

The yawl was well astern now. Her sailing-master had for a little time, in a vain endeavor to overtake his rival, pinched his boat unmercifully, so that with her nose in the wind's eye her sails were every now and then a-shiver. Now she had evidently accepted the inevitable, and was making quietly for an anchorage.

"Tell us about Mr. Castleport," Katrine said to Jerry in an undertone.

"Oh," returned Tab, "he stuck to the wheel over forty-eight hours when we had that blow we were talking about. It was a magnificent thing to do, and I think he saved us from everlasting smash. Of course he pooh-poohs the idea, but Jack's never willing to have anybody say he's done anything big. He's as modest as he is stunning," he ended warmly, throwing at the captain a glance of admiration and affection.

Katrine made no audible comment, but her glance followed his, and had Jack intercepted her look at that moment, he might have felt his heart beat more briskly.

The superior speed of the Merle, aided by the poor tactics of the skipper of the Isis, who seemed to lose his head when he found he was beaten, gave the American so much the lead that the schooner had dropped her anchor a minute or two before the yawl rounded the inner mole.

"I never had so splendid a sail in my life," Katrine said.

"I was sure you would beat that other boat, Mr. Castleport," Mrs. Fairhew told him, "and I confess I enjoyed seeing you do it."

"I couldn't be so rude as to let you ladies be beaten in a race," the captain responded, laughing.

"Of course not," put in Jerry; "no gentleman would let a lady be beaten."

"What an atrocious pun!" cried Katrine; "and Mr. Taberman looks actually wistful for fear we shouldn't see it."

"Well," her aunt said, moving toward the ladder, where the cutter was in waiting, "it has been a delightful day, and we are greatly obliged."

While the ladies were being pulled ashore, and before Jack and Jerry had returned, everything on the Merle was put in order. Just as they went below to dress for going ashore for dinner, a boat from the yawl came alongside with a note for the "Captain of the Merle; sch. Y't." Gonzague brought it to Castleport, who looked at it, and then read it aloud to Jerry.

Yawl Yacht Isis, R. Y. S.

Lord Merryfield presents his compliments to the gentleman who handled the Merle in such a masterly fashion this afternoon, and requests the honor of his presence at dinner on board the Isis this evening at six bells, A. T. It will be an additional pleasure to Lord Merryfield if the gentleman who so pluckily rose to the occasion in the matter of a parted halyard will accompany the captain of the Merle.

R. S. V. P.

Nice, July 17, 1902.

"Rot!" said Jerry inelegantly. "Let me answer it."

"Get out!" responded Jack. "I think I can settle him."

He got out the President's most elaborate stationery, and after some meditation and the destruction of one or two epistles which would not go quite to suit him, he handed to Jerry the following:—

Sch. Yt. Merle, E. Y. C.

Captain John Castleport and Mr. Jerrold Taberman present their compliments to Lord Merryfield and regret that, owing to a previous engagement, it is impossible for them to accept the invitation so kindly tendered to them. Captain Castleport further desires earnestly to express his opinion in regard to having been forced about by the Y. Yt. Isis this afternoon when he had the right of way; and to say that he considers such a manoeuvre so unsportsmanlike and insulting that it should be impossible in a gentleman's race. As the injured party, he ventures to remind Lord Merryfield that the only reparation that can be made is the severest reprimanding of the sailing-master, or whoever was responsible for this inexcusable expedient.

Nice, July 17, 1902.

"You see," Jack explained, "we let him know what we think of that caddish trick without being in the least rude ourselves. Of course the chances are that he was responsible for the thing himself, and there we have him on the hip."

"I suppose it's all right," grumbled Jerry. "You know best; but if I 'd written it, I should have told him straight out that I thought him a damned cad!"