or_ puts out
her canvas, and stands away towards the Golden Gate.

She is soon out of sight of the port; having entered the strait which
gives access to the great land-locked estuary. But a wind blowing in
from the west hinders her; and she is all the day tacking through the
eight miles of narrow water which connects San Francisco Bay with the
Pacific.

The sun is nigh set as she passes the old Spanish fort and opens view of
the outside ocean. But the heavenly orb that rose over Mont Diablo like
a globe of gold goes down beyond `Los Farrallones' more resembling a
ball of fire about to be quenched hissing in the sea.

It is still only half-immersed behind the blue expanse, when, gliding
out from the portals of the Golden Gate, the _Condor_ rounds Seal Rock,
and stands on her course West-South-West.

The wind shifts, the evening breeze begins to blow steadily from the
land. This is favourable; and after tacks have been set, and sails
sheeted home, there is but little work to be done.

It is the hour of the second dog-watch, and the sailors are all on deck,
grouped about the fore hatch, and gleefully conversing. Here and there
an odd individual stands by the side, with eyes turned shoreward, taking
a last look at the land. Not as if he regretted leaving it, but is
rather glad to get away. More than one of that crew have reason to feel
thankful that the Chilian craft is carrying them from a country, where,
had they stayed much longer, it would have been to find lodgment in a
jail. Out at sea, their faces seem no better favoured than when they
first stepped aboard. Scarce recovered from their shore carousing, they
show swollen cheeks, and eyes inflamed with alcohol; countenances from
which the breeze of the Pacific, however pure, cannot remove that
sinister cast.

At sight of them, and the two fair creatures sailing in the same ship, a
thought about the incongruity--as also the insecurity of such
companionship--cannot help coming uppermost. It is like two beautiful
birds of Paradise shut up in the same cage with wolves, tigers, and
hyenas.

But the birds of Paradise are not troubling themselves about this, or
anything else in the ship. Lingering abaft the binnacle, with their
hands resting on the taffrail, they look back at the land, their eyes
fixed upon the summit of a hill, ere long to become lost to their view
by the setting of the sun. They have been standing so for some time in
silence, when Inez sa