CHAPTER IV.
THE SCHOONER EBBA.
It was not till the next morning, and then very leisurely, that the _Ebba_ began to make preparations for her departure.

From the extremity of New-Berne quay the crew might have been seen holystoning the deck, after which they loosened the reef lines, under the direction of Effrondat, the boatswain, hoisted in the boats and cleared the halyards.
At eight o'clock the Count d'Artigas had not yet appeared on deck.
His companion, Serko the engineer, as he was called on board, had not quitted his cabin.

Captain Spade was strolling quietly about giving orders.
The _Ebba_ would have made a splendid racing yacht, though she had never participated in any of the yacht races either on the North American or British coasts.

The height of her masts, the extent of the canvas she carried, her shapely, raking hull, denoted her to be a craft of great speed, and her general lines showed that she was also built to weather the roughest gales at sea.

In a favorable wind she would probably make twelve knots an hour.
Notwithstanding these advantages, however, she must in a dead calm necessarily suffer from the same disadvantages as other sailing vessels, and it might have been supposed that the Count d'Artigas would have preferred a steam-yacht with which he could have gone anywhere, at any time, in any weather.