craned to see what had induced this unexpected prophecy. Behind the distant coast-line the inner giants of the Andes threw heavenward their rugged outlines, with many a peak and glacier glinting in vivid colors against a sky so clear and blue that they seemed strangely near.
"Yes, this wonderful atmosphere of ours is enchanting," said the doctor, when assailed by a chorus of doubts. "But it carries its deceptive smiles too far. The very beauty of the Cordillera is a sign of storm. I am sorry to be a croaker; yet we are running into a gale."
"I shall ask the captain," pouted Isobel, rising.
The Count twisted his mustache. He knew that both ladies were in the forbidden territory of the bridge when the fracas occurred.
"You, perhaps, are a good sailor?" said he, addressing Elsie.
"I am afraid to boast," she answered. "I have been in what was called a Number Eight gale, whatever that may mean, and weathered it splendidly, but I am older now."
"It cannot have been long ago, seeing that you recall it so exactly."
"It was six years ago, and I was seventeen then," said Elsie, her eyes wandering to the purple and gold of the far-off mountains.
"But you are English. You are therefore at home on the rolling deep," murmured Monsieur de Poincilit, confidentially. She did not endeavor to interpret his expressive glance, though he seemed to convey more than he said.
"Not so much at home at sea as you are in my language," she replied, and she turned to Dr. Christobal, whom she had already known slightly in Valparaiso.
"Are you coming on deck?" she inquired. "I am sure you are a mine of information on Chile, and I want to extract some of the ore while the land is still visible. It is already assuming the semblance of a dream."
"You are not saying a last farewell to Valparaiso, I hope?" said her elderly companion, as they quitted the salon.
"I think so. I have no ties there, save those of sentiment. I shall not return, unless, if a doubtful fortune permits, I am able some day to revisit two graves which are dear to me."
There was a little catch in her voice, and the doctor was far too sympathetic to endeavor forthwith to divert her sad thoughts.
"I knew your father," he said gently. "He was a most admirable man, but quite unsuited to the environment of a new country, where the dollar is god, and an unstable deity at that. He was swindled outrageously by men who stand high in the community to-day. But you, Miss Maxwell, with your knowledge of Spanish and your other acquirements, should do better here than in Europe, provided, that is, you mean to earn your own living."
"I am proud to hear you speak well of my father," she said. "And I am well aware that he was badly treated in business. I fear, too, that his advocacy of the rights of the Indians brought him into disfavor. Of all his possessions the only remnant left to me is a barren mountain, with a slice of fertile valley, in the Quillota district. It yields me the magnificent revenue of two hundred dollars per annum."
"How in the world did he come to own land there?"
"It was a gift from the Naquilla tribe. He defeated an attempt made to oust them by a big land company. The company has since asked me to sell the property, and offered me a fair price, too, as the cultivable land is a very small strip, but it would be almost like betraying the cause for which he fought, would it not?"
"Yes, indeed," agreed the doctor, though his heart and not his head dictated the reply. "May I ask you to tell me your plans for the future?" he went on.
"Well, when Mr. Baring heard I was going to England, he was good enough to promise me employment in his London agency as Spanish correspondent. That will fill in two days a week. The rest I can devote to art. I paint a little, and draw with sufficient promise to warrant study, I am told. Anyhow, I am weary of teaching; I prefer to be a pupil."
"I cannot imagine what the young men of Valparaiso were thinking of to allow a girl like you to slip off in this fashion," said Christobal with a smile.
"Most of them hold firmly to the belief that a wife's wedding-dress should be made of gilt-edged scrip."
"Poor material—very poor material out of which to construct wedded happiness. And as to my young friend, Isobel? She joins her aunt in London, I hear?"
"That is the present arrangement. She means to have a good time, especially in Paris. I should like to live in Paris myself. Dear old smoke-laden London does not appeal so thoroughly to the artist. Yet, I am content—yes, quite content."
"Then you have gained the best thing in the world," cried the doctor, throwing out his arms expansively.
The two became good friends as the voyage progressed. Christobal was exceedingly well informed, and delighted in a thoughtful listener like Elsie. Isobel, tiring at times of the Count, would join in their conversation, and display a spasmodic interest in the topics they discussed. There were only six other passengers, a Baptist missionary and his wife, three mining engineers, and an English globe-trotter, a singular being who appeared to have roamed the entire earth, but whose experiences were summed up in two words—every place he had seen was either "Fair" or "Rotten."
Even Isobel failed to draw him further, and she said one day, in a temper, after a spirited attempt to extract some of his stored impressions: "The man reminds me of one of those dummy books you see occasionally, bound in calf and labeled 'Gazetteer of the World.' When you try to open a volume you find that it is made of wood."
So they nicknamed him "Mr. Wood," and Elsie once inadvertently addressed him by the name.
"What do you think of the weather, Mr. Wood?" she asked him at breakfast.
He chanced to notice that she was speaking to him.
"Rotten," he said.
Perhaps he wondered why Miss Maxwell flushed and the others laughed. But, in actual fact, he was not far wrong in his curious choice of an adjective that morning. Dr. Christobal's dismal foreboding had been justified on the second day out. Leaden clouds, a sullen sea, and occasional puffs of a stinging breeze from the southwest, offered a sorry exchange for the sunny skies of Chile.
Though the Kansas was not a fast ship, she could have made the entrance to the Straits on the evening of the fourth day were not Captain Courtenay wishful to navigate the most dangerous part of the narrows by daylight. His intent, therefore, was to pick up the Evangelistas light about midnight, and then crack ahead at fourteen knots, so as to be off Felix Point on Desolation Island by dawn.
This was not only a prudent and seamanlike course but it would conduce to the comfort of the passengers. The ship was now running into a stiff gale. Each hour the sea became heavier, and even the eight thousand tons of the Kansas felt the impact of the giant rollers on her starboard bow. Dinner, therefore, promised to be a meal of much discomfort, cheered only by the knowledge that as soon as the vessel reached the lee of Desolation Island the giant waves of the Pacific would lose their power, and all on board would enjoy a quiet night's rest.
There were no absentees at the table. Dr. Christobal strove to enliven the others with the promise of peace ere many hours had passed.
"Pay no heed to those fellows!" he cried, as the ship quivered under the blow of a heavy sea, and they heard the thud of many tons of water breaking over the bows and fore hatch,
