do with them for the next ten
days. Perhaps he ought to devote himself to the Countess, and thus
effectually prevent any approaches that Claudius might meditate.
Yes--that was probably his duty. He wished he might ask counsel of his
sister; but then she did not know, and it seemed unfair, and altogether
rather a betrayal of confidence or something--at all events, it was not
right, and he would not do it. Barker might be wrong too. And so the
poor Duke, muddle-headed and weary with this storm in his tea-cup, and
with having his tea-cup come to grief in a real storm into the bargain,
turned into his deck-cabin to "sleep on it," thinking the morning would
bring counsel.

Claudius had many things to think of too; but he was weary, for he had
slept little of late, and not at all the night before; so he lay down
and went over the scenes of the evening; but soon he fell asleep, and
dreamed of her all the night long.

But the good yacht _Streak_ held on her course bravely, quivering in the
joy of her new-spread wings. For what hulk is so dull and pitifully
modern as not to feel how much gladder a thing it is to bound along with
straining shrouds and singing sails and lifting keel to the fierce music
of the wind than to be ever conscious of a burning sullenly-thudding
power, put in her bosom by the unartistic beast, man, to make her grind
her breathless way whither he would, and whither she would not? Not the
meanest mud-scow or harbour tug but would rather have a little mast and
a bit of canvas in the fresh salt breeze than all the hundreds of
land-born horse-powers and fire-driven cranks and rods that a
haste-loving generation can cram into the belly of the poor craft. How
much more, then, must the beautiful clean-built _Streak_ have rejoiced
on that night when she felt the throbbing, gnashing pain of the engines
stop suddenly in her breast, and was allowed to spread her beautiful
wings out to be kissed and caressed all over by her old lover, the
north-east wind?

And the grand crested waves came creeping up, curling over their dark
heads till they bristled with phosphorescent foam; and some of them
broke angrily upward, jealous that the wind alone might touch those
gleaming sails. But the wind roared at them in his wrath and drove them
away, so that they sank back, afraid to fight with him; and he took the
ship in his strong arms, and bore her fast and far that night, through
many a heaving billow, and past many a breakin