ed a chair, and on the top chair were piled
twelve small canvas bags filled with beans. The teams waited at
attention till the umpire blew a whistle, at which signal they started
simultaneously. The player nearest the chair on the right-hand side
seized a bean-bag and flung it to his opposite neighbor, who in his turn
flung it to No. 2 on the right-hand side, who threw it back to No. 2 on
the left, and so on down the line. Meantime player No. 1 had caught up a
second, and a third bean-bag, and continued passing on others till all
the twelve were in process of motion. They were tossed backwards and
forwards till they reached the chair at the bottom of the line, and were
then returned in the same way that they had come. Whichever team
succeeded first in getting all its bean-bags back to its starting chair
was considered to have won the game. It was really a much more difficult
business than it sounds, for some of the passengers were
"butter-fingers" and would fail to catch the bags, and much valuable
time was wasted in picking them up, while others were apt to cheat, and
in order to get on quicker would throw to No. 9 instead of to No. 8, an
error which the umpire's sharp eyes would immediately detect, and he
would cause the bag to go back to the starting-point.

Among all these amusements the time on the Mediterranean passed rapidly
and pleasantly. Lilias was already wonderfully better, the mild sea
breezes had almost banished her cough, and her appetite was a source of
satisfaction to Cousin Clare.

"Casa Bianca will finish the cure!" declared Carmel. "I know what care
Mother will take of you! Only a few days more now, and we shall be
there!"

Captain Porter's laughing prophecy that Lilias would be so much in love
with voyaging that she would want to go on to Alexandria was partly
justified, for she was genuinely sorry to leave the vessel when they
arrived at Valetta, the port of Malta.

"I shall come on the _Clytie_ again some day," she assured him. "Only I
bargain that you take me all the way up the Nile to look at the pyramids
and the ruined temples!"

"Very well, if you'll undertake to dig out the Nile's basin so as to
accommodate a vessel of six thousands tons!" laughed the captain.
"Otherwise I shall have to arrange to take you in a sea-plane!"

"And we'd fly over the desert? Oh, that would be thrillsome! Please book
me a seat for next year, and I'll go!"

The _Clytie_ arrived at Malta in the morning, and,