"Well, speaking for Miss Bellassys and myself," said I, "we intend to settle it to-morrow at the captain's convenience. He's very willing, and most kindly anxious." "Oh, yes," said he drily, "old Parsons is noted for this sort of thing. I have heard of his having married several couples--passengers of his--in his time. I believe he cuts a very great figure at a burial at sea; but as to his claiming the right of baptising--" he burst into a laugh, and added, "I came to Europe with him last voyage, and he once told me that he had mistaken his vocation: he ought to have entered the church. 'I should have been a bishop by this time,' said he. He has a very clerical look, certainly!" I laughed out, and went on deck with my spirits in a dance. To think of such a marriage as we contemplated! And to find it in all probability as binding as the shore-going ceremony! Assuredly it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the gale that had nearly foundered us was to end in returning us to our native shore--a wedded pair! It was a dark night, despite the young moon in the west and a wide field of stars under which a few high clouds were floating. The wind was almost directly over the stern, and seemed but little more than a quiet fanning, owing to the ship running; but it had weight enough to keep the sails silent, and to fill the ear with the murmur of hurrying waters. The ship loomed phantasmally in the clear dusk, with a regular and stately swaying of her pale heights. All was silent and dark on the main-deck and forward; on the poop glittered a few figures of male passengers with the dark shape of one of the mates pacing the deck athwartships, a stirless shadow of a man at the wheel, and someone near him, with a glowing tip in the middle of his face signifying a lighted cigar. I filled my pipe and stood musing a bit, thinking of Caudel and the others of the little dandy, of the yacht, of the gale we had outlived, and twenty other like matters, when the voice of the captain broke in upon my reverie. "This will be you, Mr. Barclay? I begin to know you now without candle light by your height." "Yes, it is I, captain--just stepped on deck for a smoke and a breath of this cool wind before turning in. Do you know, when I view the great dark outline of your ship sweeping through this tremendous space of darkness, and then think of the crowds of people asleep in her heart, I can't but consider the post of commander of a big merchantman, like this vessel, foremost amongst the most responsible under the sun." "Sir, you are right," exclaimed the little man.