"It's too bad the Ghost has lost her masts. Why we could sail away in her. Don't you think
we could, Humphrey?"
I sprang excitedly to my feet.
"I wonder, I wonder," I repeated, pacing up and down.
Maud's eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed me. She had such faith in
me! And the thought of it was so much added power. I remembered Michelet's "To man,
woman is as the earth was to her legendary son; he has but to fall down and kiss her
breast and he is strong again." For the first time I knew the wonderful truth of his words.
Why, I was living them. Maud was all this to me, an unfailing, source of strength and
courage. I had but to look at her, or think of her, and be strong again.
"It can be done, it can be done," I was thinking and asserting aloud. "What men have
done, I can do; and if they have never done this before, still I can do it."
"What? for goodness' sake," Maud demanded. "Do be merciful. What is it you can do?"
"We can do it," I amended. "Why, nothing else than put the masts back into the Ghost
and sail away."
"Humphrey!" she exclaimed.
And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a fact accomplished.
"But how is it possible to be done?" she asked.
"I don't know," was my answer. "I know only that I am capable of doing anything these
days."
I smiled proudly at her - too proudly, for she dropped her eyes and was for the moment
silent.
"But there is Captain Larsen," she objected.
"Blind and helpless," I answered promptly, waving him aside as a straw.
"But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped across the opening of the
lazarette."
"And you know also how I crept about and avoided him," I contended gaily.
