The master acknowledged the salutation with a grunt.
"Youse don't take no passengers on a yacht, hey?" he ventured.
"No," said the skipper, decisively, with the vision of the possible passenger before him.
"Yes, it is," answered the Captain, heartily, his face expressing nothing of the sorrow he might have felt at the limitations of his license.
There was a moment's silence during which the Captain looked aft at the reclining form of Mrs. Holbrook. She sat reading in the shade of the after awning with a rug over her feet to keep off the chill of the autumn air.
"Did youse ever hear of the sanctified people?" asked Jubiter John, presently.
"Well, they live down near the Jubiter Inlet where I used to run. There's one o' the fellers ashore here now an' he wants to go back home. It would be a mighty big accommodation if youse could take him with youse--don't youse think it could be done, hey? He'd pay a little."
"How much?" asked the Captain, slightly interested.
"Well, I can't say in money, but then his services air wuth somethin'. He's an all round able man, an' he'll say the prayers fer yer."
"Well, naow, that's too bad. But think it over, Cap'n, think it over."
The skipper edged to the rail and sniffed suspiciously.
"If it's just the same to you, Jubiter, I'll thank ye to get to lor'ard with that mullet roe. Whew!" said the Captain.
Jubiter John looked pained. He put the rest of the fish roe into his pocket and turned to go. At that instant the Captain started and looked up the dock. A huge figure of a man hove in sight and came slowly down the shell fill towards the yawl.
The figure was dressed in black cloth of clerical cut, the broad shoulders squared across and the hands folded behind. The stranger's head was not visible owing to the fact that he bowed it over until nothing but the top of a shiny tall hat showed in front of him, and he looked almost like a huge turtle with his head drawn inside the shell. The black tails of his coat flapped about his legs in the sea breeze as he strode slowly down to where the _Dartmoor_ lay.
Mrs. Holbrook noticed the man about the time the Captain started up the gangplank to intercept him coming aboard. Visitors were not always welcome to the skipper of the yacht, and it was his duty to see what they wanted. The Captain had hardly started well up the narrow way, when the stranger, who had reached the inshore end of it and was about to proceed down its length, suddenly raised his head. The motion was not unlike that of a turtle poking forth his nose, for it increased the man's stature a full foot, and he stopped, looking at the Captain out of eyes that seemed to hold both a challenge and a half-hidden fear. His shaved chin had a stubble of black hair, but it failed to cover the great square jaw except in spots. A line of white teeth showed between the partly opened lips, and the Captain hesitated to take in the man's appearance more fully before ordering him off the boat. The vessel gave a tug at her moorings and the gangplank took a sudden slue to one side. The next instant the Captain gave a spring for the string piece of the wharf. He missed it by a fraction of an inch and fell heavily against the timber and overboard, landing in the water with a rousing splash.