e shrank back as he was taken past, but she could not
help seeing his wild, staring eyes and white face with its expression of
despair. As he disappeared, the last gong sounded, every visitor hurried
ashore, the siren started its deep-toned blasts as warning that the
leviathan was getting under weigh.

"I wish it hadn't happened," said Grace, as she kissed her hand in adieu
to her father, who stood on the dock watching the vessel go out.

"It's made me positively ill," complained Mrs. Stuart, busy with her
smelling-salts.

Long after New York's sky-scrapers had faded from view and the land was
only a dim line on the horizon, Grace was still haunted by that white,
set face, with its expression of utter despair.

CHAPTER III.

The Indian Ocean, a vast expanse of tossing blue water, its heaving
bosom still agitated by the expiring gale, glorious in the outburst of
sunshine that followed the storm, stretched away to every point of the
compass. As far as the eye could carry, away to where the breaking
clouds touched the fast-disappearing land line of mysterious Asia, the
boisterous white-capped seas scattered showers of prisms and spray.
Rolling and tumbling, their lofty crests flecked with fleecy foam, the
endless waves advanced majestically, with rhythmical motion and the
stateliness and precision of trained battalions, all scurrying in one
direction, urged on by the whip of the southwesterly gale. The tempest
had abated, the lowering clouds were rapidly dispersing, once more
Nature was smiling and serene, diffusing the beauty and gladness of life
through water and sky. Graceful, white-winged sea-birds uttered shrill
cries of delight as they circled in the air, gorgeously colored flying
fish leaped joyously from the dancing waters, which flashed like jewels
in the blinding sunlight. The world was at its brightest and fairest,
full of movement and color. The breeze was caressing and balmy, and as
the _Atlanta_, now three weeks from home, plunged her way resistlessly
Eastward, the great liner was sonorous with the music of wind and sea.

Thus far the voyage had hardly been all that could be desired as regards
weather. January is seldom a good month for the Atlantic, and this year
the crossing was nastier than usual. The _Atlanta_ had no sooner cleared
the Banks than it began to blow great guns. Gale followed gale with
tropical downpours of rain, the wind blowing from every quarter at once,
piling up mountainous