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Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meant business. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour– ’twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to be sitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of churchwarden clays with sealing-wax–and says she:

“What’s the matter with your menkind?”

“Restin’,” says Oke with a grin. “I don’t own ’em, missus; but, from what I can hear, they’re restin’ and recoverin’ their strength.”

“I’ve brought you the stakes from our side,” says Sally, and down she slaps a five-pound note and a sovereign upon the table.

“Take ’em up, missus–take ’em up. I don’t feel equal to the responsibility. This here’s a public challenge, hey?”

“The publicker the better.”

“Then we’ll go to the Mayor about it and ask his Worship to hold the stakes.” Oke was chuckling to himself all this while, the reason being that he’d managed to bespeak the loan of a six-oared galley belonging to the Water-Guard, and, boat for boat, he made no doubt she could show her heels to the Indefatigable Woman. He unlocked his strong-box, took out and pocketed a bag of money, and reached his hat off its peg. “I suppose ‘twouldn’t do to offer you my arm?” says he.

“Folks would talk, Mr. Oke–thanking you all the same.”

So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked at the Mayor’s door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlour with a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soon after burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at the cheese-mongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he woke up very politely to attend to his visitors’ business.

“Yes, for sure, I’ll hold the stakes,” said he: “and I’ll see it put in big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot of visitors. But lor’ bless you, Mr. Oke!–if you win, it’ll do me no good. She”–meaning his wife–“has gone to a land where I’ll never be able to crow over her.”

“Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?” put in Sal.

“Tut-tut!” says the Mayor. “They’ve booked Seth Ede for stroke.” And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to Landlord Oke. “But perhaps I oughtn’t to have mentioned that?” says he.

“Well,” says Sal, “you’ve a-let the cat out of the bag, and I see that all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is a challenge, and I mustn’t go back on it.” Indeed, in her secret heart she was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad: and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty well all the conditions of the race as Oke laid ’em down. A tearing long course it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start from near-abouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boat somewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay.

“My dears,” she said to her mates later on, “I don’t mind telling you I was all of a twitter, first-along, wondering what card that man Oke was holding back–he looked so sly and so sure of hisself. But if he’ve no better card to play than Seth Ede, we can sleep easy.”

“Seth Ede’s a powerful strong oar,” Bess Rablin objected.

“Was, you mean. He’ve a-drunk too much beer these four years past to last over a five-mile course; let be that never was his distance. And here’s another thing: they’ve picked Tremenjous Hosken for one th’art.”

“And he’s as strong as a bullock.”

“I dessay: but Seth Ede pulls thirty-eight or thirty-nine to the minute all the time he’s racing–never a stroke under. I’ve watched him a score o’ times. If you envy Hosken his inside after two miles o’ that, you must be like Pomery’s pig–in love with pain. They’ve hired or borrowed the Preventive boat, I’m told; and it’s the best they could do. She’s new, and she looks pretty. She’ll drag aft if they put their light weights in the bows: still, she’s a good boat. I’m not afeared of her, though. From all I can hear, the Woman was known for speed in her time, all through the fleet. You can feel she’s fast, and see it, if you’ve half an eye: and the way she travels between the strokes is a treat. The Mounseers can build boats. But oh, my dears, you’ll have to pull and stay the course, or in Saltash the women take second place for ever!”