answer, and repeated, "She knows it. Anyone can see that with half an
eye."

Geoffrey and Lionel talked the matter over when they were sitting
together on deck apart from the others. It was an age when there were
still many superstitions current in the land. Even the upper classes
believed in witches and warlocks, in charms and spells, in lucky and
unlucky days, in the arts of magic, in the power of the evil eye; and
although to the boys it seemed absurd that a vessel should have life,
they were not prepared altogether to discredit an idea that was
evidently thoroughly believed by those who had been on board ships all
their lives. After talking it over for some time they determined to
submit the question to their father on their return.

It took them two more tides before they were off Sheerness. The wind
was now more favourable, and having increased somewhat in strength, the
_Susan_ made her way briskly along, heeling over till the water
ran along her scuppers. There was plenty to see now, for there were
many fishing-boats at work, some belonging, as Master Chambers told
them, to the Medway, others to the little village of Leigh, whose
church they saw at the top of the hill to their right. They met, too,
several large craft coming down the river, and passed more than one,
for the _Susan_ was a fast boat.

"They would beat us," the skipper said when the boys expressed their
surprise at their passing such large vessels, "if the wind were
stronger or the water rough. We are doing our best, and if the wind
rises I shall have to take in sail; while they could carry all theirs
if it blew twice as hard. Then in a sea, weight and power tell; a wave
that would knock the way almost out of us would hardly affect them at