ttle of its wintry tempests, its
dangers and horrors. Bowse observed the interest she took in all that
was going forward, and, like a true sailor, felt as much gratified as if
she was his own daughter, and under his especial protection. Jack, the
cabin-boy, was coiling away a rope near him, and beckoning to him, he
sent him down for a comfortable chair, which, on its appearance, he
placed before her.

"There, miss," he observed, "I think you will be able, more at your
ease, to sit and look at the little island we are leaving behind us.
It's always a pleasure to take the last look at the place we are going
from."

Ada thanked him with a sweet smile for the chair which he had
judiciously placed on the starboard side of the poop, and looking partly
aft, so that she could command a full view of the harbour, where the
_Ione_ lay, and of the fortifications of Valetta. The _Zodiac_ was now
running out between forts Saint Elmo and Ricasoli; and as she cleared
the former, she felt the wind drawing rather more to the northward. Her
yards were, therefore, braced forward, and her mainsail hauled out; and
now with the wind on her quarter, a point in which every sail a
square-rigged vessel can carry draws best, with a fine rattling breeze
she rapidly left the shores of Malta astern.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Never did a vessel leave port under more propitious circumstances than
did the _Zodiac_, with a fair, steady breeze, a smooth sea, and at a
time of the year when there was every prospect of the continuance of
fine weather.

As Bowse walked the deck with a spy-glass under his arm in man-of-war
fashion, a smile of contentment lit up his honest countenance, and
glistened in his eye; and as he felt the freshening breeze fanning his
cheek, and lifting his vessel, as it were, he began to laugh at his
momentary suspicions about the character of the speronara and her crew.
Every now and then he would stop in his walk, and would look over the
side to judge how fast the vessel was going through the water, or he
would examine the compasses to assure himself that they were true, or he
would cast his eye aloft to see how his sails drew, or his clear, full
voice would be heard issuing some necessary order for the government of
the ship.

Even Colonel Gauntlett could not help expressing his satisfaction at the
propitious commencement of their voyage, as he stopped in his short and
otherwise silent walk on the poop to address a few words