“No,” replied the Doctor, in a softened tone, “an engaged couple, who are only waiting for their arrival in New York to get married, they have just made the tour of Europe, of course with their family’s consent, and they know now that they are made for one another. Nice young people; it is a pleasure to look at them. I often see them leaning over the railings of the engine-rooms, counting the turns of the wheels, which do not go half fast enough for their liking. Ah! sir, if our boilers were heated like those two youthful hearts, see how our speed would increase!” [Illustration: I OFTEN SEE THEM LEANING OVER THE RAILINGS OF THE ENGINE-ROOM.] CHAPTER XI. This day, at half-past twelve, a steersman posted up on the grand saloon door the following observation:— Lat. 51° 15´ N. Long. 18° 13´ W. Dist.: Fastenet, 323 miles. This signified that at noon we were three hundred and twenty-three miles from the Fastenet lighthouse, the last which we had passed on the Irish coast, and at 51° 15´ north latitude, and 18° 13´ west longitude, from the meridian of Greenwich. It was the ship’s bearing, which the captain thus made known to the passengers every day. By consulting this bearing, and referring it to a chart, the course of the “Great Eastern” might be followed. Up to this time she had only made three hundred and twenty miles in thirty-six hours, it was not satisfactory, for a steamer at its ordinary speed does not go less than three hundred miles in twenty-four hours. After having left the Doctor, I spent the rest of the day with Fabian; we had gone to the stern, which Pitferge called “walking in the country.” There alone, and leaning over the taffrail, we surveyed the great expanse of water, while around us rose the briny vapours distilled from the spray; small rainbows, formed by the refraction of the sun’s rays, spanned the foaming waves. Below us, at a distance of forty feet, the screw was beating the water with a tremendous force, making its copper gleam in the midst of what appeared to be a vast conglomeration of liquefied emeralds, the fleecy track extending as far as the eye could reach, mingled in a milky path the foam from the screw, and the paddle engines, whilst the white and black fringed plumage of the sea-gulls flying above, cast rapid shadows over the sea. Fabian was looking at the magic of the waves without speaking. What did he see in this liquid mirror, which gave scope to the most capricious flights of imagination? Was some vanished face passing before his eyes, and bidding him a last farewell? Did he see a drowning shadow in these eddying waters? He seemed to me sadder than usual, and I dared not ask him the cause of his grief.