The day wore on, and the yacht sailed merrily over a summer sea.  Mr. Smithson fidgeted about the deck uneasily, watching every movement of the sailors.  No boat could be sailing better, as it seemed to him; but in such weather and over such waters any boat must needs go easily.  It was in the blackness of night, amidst the fury of the storm, that Montesma’s opinion had been formed.  Smithson began to think that his friend was right.  The sailors had honest countenances, but they looked horribly stupid.  Could men with such vacuous grins, such an air of imbecile good-nature, be capable of acting wisely in any terrible crisis?—­could they have nerve and readiness, quickness, decision, all those grand qualites which are needed by the seaman who has to contend with the fury of the elements?

Mr. Smithson and his guests had breakfasted too late for the possibility of luncheon.  They were in Cowes Roads by one o’clock.  A fleet of yachts had arrived during their absence, and the scene was full of life and gaiety.  Lady Lesbia held a levee at the afternoon tea, and had a crowd of her old admirers around her—­adorers whose presence in no wise disturbed Horace Smithson’s peace.  He would have been content that his wife should go through life with a herd of such worshippers following in her footsteps.  He knew the aimless innocence, the almost infantine simplicity of the typical Johnnie, Chappie, Muscadin, Petit Creve, Gommeux—­call him by what name you will.  From these he feared no evil.  But in that one follower who gave no outward token of his worship he dreaded peril.  It was Montesma he watched, while dragoons with close-cropped hair, and imbecile youths with heads rigid in four-inch collars, were hanging about Lady Lesbia’s low bamboo chair, and administering obsequiously to the small necessities of the tea-table.

It was while this tea-table business was going on that Mr. Smithson took the opportunity of setting his mind at rest, were it possible, as to the merits of Captain Wilkinson.  Among his visitors this afternoon there was the owner of three or four racing yachts—­a man renowned for his victories, at home and abroad.

’I think you knew something of my captain, Wilkinson, before I engaged him,’ said Smithson, with assumed carelessness.

‘I know every skipper on board every boat in the squadron,’ answered his friend.  ‘A good fellow, Wilkinson—­thoroughly honest fellow.’

’Honest; oh yes, I know all about that.  But how about his seamanship?  His certificates were wonderfully good, but they are not everything.

‘Everything, my dear fellow,’ cried the other; ’they are next to nothing.  But I believe Wilkinson is a tolerable sailor.’

This was not encouraging.

‘He has never been unlucky, I believe.’