e at the antipodes;
the gift of the money, however, was accompanied by a request from the
Earl that he would never again show his face in England, or even in
Europe.

At the moment when this story opens the sound of the ship's bell--upon
which "four bells" had just been struck--was still vibrating upon the
wet, fog-laden air; the steerage passengers were all below, and most of
them in their bunks; while the cuddy people, with one solitary
exception, were in the brilliantly lighted saloon, amusing themselves
with cards, books, and music. The exception was Leslie, who, having
changed out of his dress clothes into a comfortable suit of blue serge,
was down in the waist of the ship, smoking a gloomily retrospective
pipe. The ship's reckoning, that day, had placed her, at noon, in
Latitude 32 degrees 10 minutes North, and Longitude 26 degrees 55
minutes West; she was therefore about midway between the parallels of
Madeira and Teneriffe, but some four hundred miles, or thereabouts, to
the westward of those islands. The wind was blowing a moderate breeze
from about south-east by South; and the ship, close-hauled on the port
tack, and with all plain sail set, to her royals, was heading
south-west, and going through the water at the rate of a good honest
seven knots. The helmsman was steering by compass, and not by the
sails, since it was impossible to see anything above a dozen feet up
from the deck; hence the ship was going along with everything a-rap
full.

Captain Rainhill was very far from being easy in his mind. Seven knots,
he meditated, was a good pace at which to be sailing through a fog thick
enough to cut with a knife, and would mean something very much like
disaster if the ship happened to run up against anything, particularly
if that "anything" happened also to be travelling at about the same
speed in the opposite direction; from this point of view, therefore, the
speed of the _Golden Fleece_ just then constituted a decided element of
danger. On the other hand, however, it enabled her to promptly answer
her helm, and thus might be the means of enabling her to swerve quickly
aside and so avoid any danger that might suddenly loom up out of the fog
around her; and in this sense it became a safeguard. Then there was the
fact that the _Golden Fleece_ was no longer in a crowded part of the
ocean; it was three days since they had sighted a craft of any
description, and there might be at that moment nothing within