For Antonia, she revelled in the free breeze, the brilliant sea and sky, like a happy child, and as a glancing spray fell lightly over them, she carolled forth the refrain of a sea song with a nerve and animation by no means usual. ‘Is not this lovely fresh life a renewal of all one’s senses?’ she cried. ‘I feel as if an additional one, indescribable and amazing, was given to me whenever I am on blue water. You know we are all great sailors and boatmen in this Sydney harbour of ours. Look at the numbers of skiffs, pleasure boats, and yachts that are now skimming about like seamews in all directions.’ ‘Rather too many for my fancy. Every now and then accidents occur, plain sailing as everything looks just now. The gusts which come down across these points are like small white squalls.’ ‘Ah! but the present, my darling old pappy,’ sighed Antonia, ‘what can possibly be more glorious for mere mortals? Why should we grieve ourselves with the past or possible sorrows? Can anything be more dreamily lovely than that pale amber sky over which the dark blue shadow is creeping from the headland? What can surpass the softly-gliding magical motion with so much swiftness and so little effort? I don’t wonder that a sea life has always gathered to it so much poetry and romance. I fell in love with a pirate once.’ ‘With a pirate? Where?’ exclaimed Ernest, surprised out of the placid enjoyment which pervaded the whole party. ‘In a book, of course,’ answered she; ‘you didn’t think we entertained such gallant rovers at Morahmee, except, like angels, unawares? But he was such a delightful creature. I remember the lines still.’ ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind repeating them.’ ‘Oh yes. I shall never forget them, I am sure,’ the girl answered, looking seawards. ‘I found them in an old―old―annual. You shall judge:― ‘Our Captain, he is young and fair, How can he look so young? His locks of youth, his golden hair, Are o’er his shoulders flung. ‘Of all the deeds that he has done Not one has left a trace, The midnight cup, the noontide sun Has darken’d not his face. ‘His voice is low, his smile is sweet, He has a girl’s blue eyes, And yet far rather would I meet The storm in yonder skies. ‘The fiercest of our pirate band Holds, at his name, the breath; For there is blood on his right hand, And in his heart is death. ‘He knows he rides upon his grave, Yet careless is his eye; He looks with scorn upon the wave, With scorn upon the sky.’ ‘Not a bad conception, I admit,’ said Ernest, ‘though, doubtless, violently untrue to nature. In all ages poets and romance writers, who are humbugs to a man, have laboured to unite personal beauty and winning gentleness of manner with the capacity for remorseless crime. I think, perhaps, that the young Spaniard in _Tom Cringle’s Log_ is as good a specimen of the thoroughbred upstanding pirate as any of those gentry whose acquaintance I have made, like you, in print.’