‘Then wasn’t it rather cruel of us to sail his yacht?’

’Yachts are meant for sailing, and again, sea-sickness is supposed to be a wholesome exercise.’

‘Good-night.’

‘Good-night,’ both good nights in Spanish, and with a touch of tenderness which the words could hardly have expressed in English.

‘Must you really go?’ pleaded Montesma, holding her hand just a thought longer than he had ever held it before.

‘Ah, the little more, and how much it is,’ says the poet.

‘Really and truly.’

‘I am so sorry.  I wish you could have stayed on deck all night.’

’So do I, with all my heart.  This calm sea under the starlit sky is like a dream of heaven.’

’It is very nice, but if you stayed I think I could promise you considerable variety.  We shall have a tempest before morning.’

‘Of all things in the world I should love to see a thunderstorm at sea.’

‘Be on the alert then, and Captain Parkes and I will try to oblige you.’

’At any rate you have made it impossible for me to sleep.  I shall stay with Lady Kirkbank in the saloon.  Good-night, again.’

‘Good-night.’

CHAPTER XXXIX.

IN STORM AND DARKNESS.

Lesbia found Lady Kirkbank prostrate on a low divan in the saloon, sleepless, and very cross.  The atmosphere reeked with red lavender, sal-volatile, eau de Cologne, and brandy, which latter remedy poor Georgie had taken freely in her agonies.  Kibble, the faithful Grasmere girl, sat by the divan, fanning the sufferer with a large Japanese fan.  Rilboche had naturally, as a Frenchwoman, succumbed utterly to her own feelings, and was moaning in her berth, wailing out every now and then that she would never have taken service with Miladi had she suspected her to be capable of such cruelty as to take her to live for weeks upon the sea.

If this was the state of affairs now while the ocean was only gently stirred, what would it be by-and-by if the tempest should really come?

‘What can you be thinking of, staying on deck all night with those men?’ exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, peevishly.  ‘It is hardly respectable.’

She would have been still more inclined to object had she known that Lesbia’s companion had been ‘that man’ rather than ‘those men.’

‘What do you mean by all night?’ Lesbia retorted, contemptuously; ’it is only just twelve.’

’Only twelve.  I thought we were close upon daylight.  I have suffered an eternity of agony.’

’I am very sorry you should be ill; but really the sea has been so deliciously calm.’

’I believe I should have suffered less if it had been diabolically rough.  Oh, that monotonous flip-flap of the water, that slow heaving of the boat!  Nothing could be worse.’

’I am glad to hear you say that, for Don Gomez says we are likely to have a tempest.’