onds,' thought poor
Georgie, 'or I should have had them with me on board this hateful boat.'

And then she rapped vehemently against the panel of the cabin, and
screamed for Rilboche, whose den was adjacent.

Rilboche, who detested the sea, made her appearance after some delay,
looking even greener than her mistress, who, in rising from her berth,
already began to suffer the agonies of sea-sickness.

'What does this mean?' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank; 'and where are we
going?'

'That's what I should like to know, my lady. But I daresay Lady Lesbia
and Mr. Montesma can tell you. They are both on deck.'

'Montesma! Why, we left him on shore!'

'Yes, my lady, but he came on board at five o'clock this morning. I
looked at my watch when I heard him land, and he and Lady Lesbia have
been sitting on deck ever since.'

'And now it is ten. Five hours on deck--impossible!'

'Time doesn't seem long when one is happy, my lady,' murmured Rilboche,
in her own language.

'Help me to dress this instant,' screamed her mistress: 'that dreadful
Spaniard is eloping with us.'

Despite the hideous depression of that malady which strikes down Kaiser
and beggar with the same rough hand, Lady Kirkbank contrived to get
herself dressed decently, and to stagger up the companion to that part
of the deck where the Persian carpet was spread, and the bamboo chairs
and tables were set out under the striped awning. Lesbia and her lover
were sitting together, he giving her a first lesson in the art of
smoking a cigarette. He had told her playfully that every man, woman,
and child in Cuba was a smoker, and she had besought him to let her
begin, and now, with infinite coquetry, was taking her first lesson.

'You shameless minx!' exclaimed Georgie, pale with anger.

'Where is Smithson--my poor, good Smithson?'

'Fast asleep in his bed at Formosa, I hope, dear Lady Kirkbank,' the
Cuban answered, with perfect _sang froid_. 'Smithson is out of it, as
you idiomatic English say. I hope, Lady Kirkbank, you will be as kind to
me as you have been to Smithson; and depend upon it I shall make Lady
Lesbia as good a husband as ever Smithson could have done.'

'You!' exclaimed the matron, contemptuously. 'You!--a foreigner, an
adventurer, who may be as poor as Job, for anything I know about you.'

'Job was once rather comfortably off, Lady Kirkbank; and I can answer
for it that Montesma's wife will know none of the pangs of poverty.'

'If you were a begga