iller
to the fore-hatch, varying the exercise with a full inspection of every
craft that showed above the horizon. At eight bells we lay a few miles
farther westward, the island still visible to the starboard, but less
distinct. At four bells, when we went to lunch, the heat was terrible
below, and the sun was terrible on deck; but yet there was not a
breeze. At six bells some dark and dirty clouds rose up from the south,
and twenty hands pointed to them. At "one bell in the first dog" the
clouds were thick, and the sun was hidden. Half-an-hour later there was
a shrill whistling in the shrouds, and the rain began to patter on the
deck, while the booms fretted, and we relieved her in part of her press
of sail. When the squall struck us at last, the Channel was foaming
with long lines of choppy seas; and the sky southward was dark as ink.
But there was only joy of it aboard; we stood gladly as the _Celsis_
heeled to it, and rising free as an unslipped hound, sent the spray
flying in clouds, and dipped her decks to the foam which washed her.

During one hour, when we must have made eleven knots, the wind blew
strong, and was fresh again after that; so that we set the foresail
unreefed and let the great mainsail go not many minutes later. The
swift motion was an ecstasy to all of us, an unbounded delight; and
even the skipper softened as we stood well out to sea, and looked on a
great continent of clouds underlit with the spreading glow of the
sunset, their rain setting up the mighty arched bow whose colours stood
out with a rich light over the wide expanse of the east. Nor did the
breeze fall, but stiffened towards night, so that in the first bell,
when we came up from dinner, the _Celsis_ was straining and foaming as
she bent under her pressure of canvas, and it needed a sailor's foot to
tread her decks. But of this no one thought, for we had hardly come
above when we heard Dan hailing--

"Yacht on the port-bow."

"What name?" came from twenty throats.

"_La France_," said Dan, and the words had scarce left his lips when
the skipper roared the order--

"Stand by to go about!"

For some minutes the words "'bout ship" were not spoken. The schooner
held her course, and rapidly drew up with the yacht we had set out to
seek. From the first there was no doubt about her name, which she
displayed in great letters of gold above her figure-head. Dan had read
them as he sighted her; and we in turn felt a thrill of delight as