They found Dorothy and Sir Tancred already on board, and
were told that a cablegram from New York had given her father, his
secretaries, and the telegraph office of Arcachon a day's work, and
prevented him from coming with them. Tinker had known this fact all
the morning, but he did not say so. His manner to his father showed a
serene unconsciousness of any cloud upon their relations.
The _Petrel_ was soon crossing the Gulf in an immensely important way,
at her full speed of eight knots an hour. In pursuance of his policy
Tinker took Elsie forward, and left Dorothy and his father to entertain
one another on the quarter-deck. The two children amused themselves
very well talking to Alphonse, the steersman, and Adolphe, the
engineer, thick-set, thick-witted men, who combined the picturesqueness
of organ-grinders with the stolidity of agriculturalists; Nature had
plainly intended them for the plough, and Circumstance had pitched them
into seafaring.
An hour's steering brought them across the Gulf. They landed, and made
their dejeuner at a little auberge, or rather cabaret, affected by
fishermen, and the folk of the _Landes_, off grey mullet, fresh from
the Bay of Biscay, grilled over a fire of pine-cones, with a second
course of ring-doves roasted before it.
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