They had met with westerly gales, and although the movement of the ship seemed wholly unaffected (so perfect was the balancing system), yet the speed was comparatively low, and it was not until shortly before dawn on the second day that they came in sight of the American coast.

Monsignor woke early that morning, and after lying and listening for half an hour or so to the strange little sounds with which the air was full—­the steady rush of wind like a long hush; the shivering of some tiny loose scale in one of the planes outside his window; a minute inexplicable tapping beneath the floor of his cabin—­all those sounds so unidentifiable by the amateur, and yet so suggestive—­he got up, dressed, and went across to the oratory, where he had said Mass on the previous morning, to say his prayers.  When he had finished he came out again, went upstairs, and along to the end of the ship, whence from a protected angle he could look straight ahead.  The lights were all on, as the sun was not yet up, and the upper deck, except for a patrolling officer, was entirely empty.

For a while he could make out little or nothing beyond the jutting prow beneath him, itself also illuminated, and various outlines and silhouettes of devices and rigging which even now he did not properly understand.  Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to see.

Beneath him flitted a corrugated leaden surface, flecked occasionally with white, which he knew to be water, eight hundred feet at least below, and once he caught a glimpse of a flattened-looking, fish-shaped object, which went again in an instant, lighted interiorly, which he guessed to be a coasting steamer.  Before him nothing at first was visible except an enormous gulf of gloom, but presently, as the dawn came on behind, this gulf became tinged with a very faint rosy colour in its upper half, enabling him to distinguish sea from sky, and almost immediately afterwards the sea itself turned to a livid pale tinge under the glowing light.

The next thing that he noticed was that the edge of the sea against the sky began to look irregular and blotted, a little lumpy here and there, and as he looked this lumpiness grew and rose higher.

He turned as the step of the officer sounded close to him.

“That’s land, I suppose?” he said.

“Yes, father; we shall be in by half-past five. . . .  Beg your pardon, father, are you staying long?”

Monsignor shook his head.

“That depends on a hundred things,” he said.

“Curious idea this colony; but I dare say it’s best.”

Monsignor smiled and said nothing.

* * * * *