ocean breeze will taste as sweetly over my bulwark-rails as on the bridge of the gallantest man-of-war that flies the crimson cross;' and thus he went on vapouring as usual in fathoms of commonplace, yet with a bland underlying insistence always upon our being his guests, upon our remaining with him and being happy, as though, indeed, we had cheerfully consented to stop, and were looking forward with great enjoyment to the voyage.

I was as cold and distant as I could well be, answered him in monosyllables, ate as if with aversion, and as though I constrained myself to devour merely to keep body and soul together. But he did not seem to heed my manner in the least; I could swear, indeed, that he did not observe it. He was wholly engrossed in contemplation of Helga, and in the enjoyment of enlarging his waistcoat, and delivering, more or less through his nose, with a fixed smile and somewhat leering eye, the dull, trivial, insipid contents of his mind.

He asked the girl to play draughts with him when Punmeamootty had cleared the table. On her declining, he fetched from his cabin the volume of Jeremy Taylor—it was that divine's 'Holy Living and Dying,' I think—and asked permission to read a few pages aloud. She could not refuse, and I see that extraordinary shipmaster now, standing under the lamp, holding the portly volume up with both hands, smiling upon the page, pausing at intervals to look over the top of the book at the girl with a nod to serve as a point of admiration, and reading nasally without the faintest inflection, so that at a little distance his delivery must have sounded like a continuous groan. He then begged her to read to him.

'What greater treat could we have,' said he, looking at me, 'than to hear the rich, noble, impressive words of this great Bishop pronounced by the charming lips of Miss Helga Nielsen?'

But she curtly refused; and, after hovering about her for another half-hour, during which I could notice a growing air in him that was a distinct intimation, in its way, of his entire satisfaction with the progress he was making, he withdrew to his cabin.

Helga looked at me with weariness and dismay, and moistened her lips.

'This is worse than the raft,' said I.

'It is so bad,' she exclaimed, 'that I feel persuaded it cannot last.'

'Let us go on deck. If we linger here he may rejoin us. How tragical it all is one may know by the humour of it.'

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