"Yes," said the other, with a sentimental air, "I wonder what he is
thinking of at those times! I'll make love to the captain, and see if
I can find out something about him, they seem very intimate. We must
try and cheer him up, dear."

"He doesn't seem to want much cheering up now," said her friend, as
Cardo passed them with two other young men, who were enjoying a story
told by one of them, Cardo's merry laugh being loudest and heartiest of
the three. But--there was a sober, wistful look on his face sometimes
which was not habitual to it, and as the days slipped on, he might
often be seen, leaning over the side of the vessel with an anxious
pucker on his forehead.

The parting with Valmai had, of course, been a trying ordeal. With the
fervour of a first and passionate love, he recalled every word she had
spoken, every passing shade of thought reflected on her face, and while
these reveries occupied his mind, there was a tender look in the deep
black eyes and a smile on his lips. But these pleasant memories were
apparently often followed by more perplexing thoughts. One afternoon
he had been standing for some time lost in a dream, while he looked
with eyes that saw nothing over the heaving waters to the distant
horizon, when the captain's voice at his elbow recalled him to his
surroundings.

"You are looking at the very point of the wind, the very eye of the
storm."

"The storm!" said Cardo, starting; "are we going to have one?"

The captain looked critically in the direction towards which they were
sailing.

"Dirty weather coming, I think."

"Yes, I see," said Cardo; "I had not noticed it before, though. How
inky black the sky is over there! And the sea as black, and that white
streak on the line of the horizon!"

"We shall have a bit of a toss," said the captain. "Couldn't expect to
get to Australia on a mill pond."

"Mill pond do you call the swells we have had the last few days?"

"Almost," replied the captain, leaving him unceremoniously, and
shouting some orders to his crew.

Thus left, Cardo fell again into a deep reverie. Yes, it looked black
before them! "But I have always wished to see a storm at sea, and if I
only had Valmai with me, I should be joyous and exultant; but instead
of that, I am alone, and have a strange foreboding of some evil to
come. I can't be well, though I'm sure I don't know where I ail, for I
feel alright, and I eat like a horse."

"Come, Mr. Wynne," said