Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/58

This page has been validated.
42
THE FORTUNE OF THE INDIES

such as the one Great-grandfather Mark had used to shout his clear, quick orders from the quarter-deck. From the walls above, stiff, ruddy portraits of sea-captains and ship-owners looked down gravely upon these relics of their calling,—a keen-eyed, firm-lipped set of men, sedate in their dark clothes and well-tied stocks.

It was while Mark and Alan were engaged in a lively dispute over the ships in bottles that Jane saw in a corner two or three ship models—a square-set whaler, a dashing brig, and a full-rigged clipper ship with every sail set, even to her lofty moonsail. ". . . Inclusive of the moonsail, that which the Gloria has not." Jane drew nearer to peer at the lovely thing from every angle. She screwed herself into the corner and stooped to look at the careful fashioning of the taffrail at the stern. And there, on a dimly golden scroll, was the vessel's name—Fortune of the Indies, Resthaven.

Jane's shout brought not only Mark and Alan from the inspection of cutlasses, but also the curator from his musty office and the visitors from two or three rooms. These last stared very hard, rather disappointed, perhaps, to see only a smallish girl in a boy's reefer