ye, sir," returned the helmsman, reversing the wheel. "Port it
is, sir; two points over."

"Steady."

"Steady it is."

Whereupon, a straight course being now laid for the little port to which
they were bound on the Isle of Wight opposite, the _Bembridge Belle_
steamed ahead, splashing and dashing through the water, that rippled
over with laughter in the bright sunshine, lightening up its translucent
depths, and leaving a broad silvery wake of dancing eddies behind her.

CHAPTER TEN.

AFLOAT--AND ASHORE.

"Sure, I'm almost dead entirely, with all that hurrying and scurrying!"
exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, when she was at length got safely on board the
little steamer and comfortably placed on a cosy seat aft, near the
wheel, to which Captain Dresser had gallantly escorted her. "Really,
now, I couldn't have run another yard, if it had been to save me life!"

She panted out the words with such a racy admixture of her Irish
"brogue," which always became more "pronounced" with her when she was at
all excited in any way, that the Captain, even while showing every
sympathy for her distressed condition, could not help chuckling as he
imitated her tone of voice and accent--much to the amusement of Master
Bob and Miss Nellie, you may be sure!

"Sure, an' there's no knowin' what ye can do, now, till ye thry, ma'am!"
said he. "Is there, me darlint?"

"None of your nonsense," she replied laughing; "I won't have you making
fun of my country like that. I'm sure you're just as much an Irishman
as I am!"

This slip delighted the Captain.

"There, ma'am," he exclaimed exultingly, "you've been and gone and put
your foot in it now in all conscience."

"Oh, auntie!" cried Nellie, "an _Irishman_!"

This made Mrs Gilmour see her blunder, and she cheerfully joined in the
laugh against herself.

Bob, meanwhile, had stationed himself by the engine-room hatchway, and
was contemplating with rapt attention the almost human-like movements of
the machinery below.

How wonderful it all was, he thought--the up and down stroke of the
piston in and out of the cylinder, which oscillated from side to side
guided by the eccentric; with the steady systematic revolution of the
shaft, borne round by the crank attached to the piston-head, all working
so smoothly, and yet with such resistless force!

The whole was a marvel to him, as indeed it is to many of us to whom a
marine engine is no novelty.

"Well, my young philosopher," said the C