‘Mercy on me! this horrid thing must be moving,’ she exclaimed to the empty air.  ‘It must have broken loose in the night.’

She had no confidence in those savage-looking sailors, and she had a vision of the yacht drifting at the mercy of winds and waves, drifting for days, weeks, and months; drifting to the German Ocean, drifting to the North Pole.  Mr. Smithson and Montesma on shore—­no one on board to exercise authority over those fearful men.

Perhaps they had mutinied, and were carrying off the yacht as their booty, with Lesbia and her chaperon, and all their gowns.

‘I am almost glad that harpy Seraphine has my diamonds,’ 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.’