Although a brisk sea was on, the wind had been steady from that quarter
all night, and the motion was uniform. The Maria was an excellent
sea-boat. There was no indication, therefore, of the return of that
malady which had been so prevalent on the passage to Bear Island. Mr.
Cooke had never felt better, and looked every inch a sea-captain in his
natty yachting-suit. He had acquired a tan on the island; and, as is
eminently proper on a boat, he affected nautical manners and nautical
ways. But his vernacular savored so hopelessly of the track and stall
that he had been able to acquire no mastery over the art of marine
invective. And he possessed not so much as one maritime oath. As soon
as we had swung clear of the cove he made for the weather stays, where he
assumed a posture not unlike that in the famous picture of Farragut
ascending Mobile Bay. His leather case was swung over his shoulder, and
with his glasses he swept the lake in search of the Scimitar and other
vessels of a like unamiable character.

Although my client could have told you, offhand, jackstraw's last mile in
a bicycle sulky, his notion of the Scimitar's speed was as vague as his
knowledge of seamanship. And when I informed him that in all probability
she had already passed the light on Far Harbor reef, some nine miles this
side of the Far Harbor police station, he went into an inordinate state
of excitement. Mr. Cooke was, indeed, that day the embodiment of an
unselfish if misdirected zeal. He was following the dictates of both
heart and conscience in his endeavor to rescue his guest from the law;
and true zeal is invariably contagious. What but such could have
commanded the unremitting labors of that morning? Farrar himself had
done three men's work before breakfast, and it was, in great part, owing
to him that we were now leaving the island behind us. He was sailing the
Maria that day as she will never be sailed again: her lee gunwale awash,