mistake the fact that he was her commander.

He wore a glazed tarpaulin hat of coarse texture, and his dress was of
little better material than that of the crew he commanded, but it set it
somehow quite jauntily upon his fine, well-developed form, and there
was an unmistakable air of conscious authority about him that showed him
to be no stranger to control, or the position which he filled. The hair,
escaping in glossy curls from beneath his hat, added to a set of very
regular features a fine effect, while a clear, full blue eye, and an
open, ingenuous expression of countenance, told of manliness of heart
and chivalric hardihood of character. Exposure to the elements had
bronzed his skin, but there were no wrinkles there, and Captain Will
Ratlin could not have seen more than two and twenty years, though most
of them had doubtless been passed upon the ocean, for his well-knit form
showed him to be one thoroughly inured to service.

"She does her work daintily, Captain Ratlin," said he who was evidently
an officer, and who had been standing by the mainmast, but now walked
aft.

"Yes, Mr. Faulkner, 'daintily' is the word. I wish our beauty could be a
little more spunky, time is money in our business, sir," was the prompt
reply.

"But the willing craft does all she can, sir."

"I don't know, Mr. Faulkner, we can make her do almost anything."

"But talk," added the mate.