"For a Frenchman," he said to the young man, "you surprise me. I have seen a good many of your countrymen upon the _Jenny_. And yet you are the first that I have seen, so far, who rises at the most delicious hour of the day on sea.--Just breathe the breeze that comes from the open. You could work for ten hours without feeling tired, after taking a supply of such oxygen into your lungs.--The sky makes me a little uneasy," he added. "We have gone too far out of our course. We cannot reach Genoa before eight o'clock and the _Jenny_ may receive a good tossing before that time.--I never had any sympathy for those yachtsmen who invite their friends to enjoy the hospitality of a stateroom in company with a slop-pail!--We could have gone from Cannes to Genoa in four hours, but I thought it better to let you sleep away from the tumult of the port.--The barometer was very high! I have never seen it descend so quickly." The dome of the heavens, so clear all the preceding day and night, had indeed, little by little, been obscured by big, gray, rock-like clouds. Others were spread along the line of the horizon like changing lines fleeing from each other. Pale rays of sunlight struggled to pierce this curtain of gray vapor. The sea was still all around them, but no longer motionless and glossy. The water was leadlike in hue, opaque, heavy, menacing. The breeze freshened rapidly, and soon a strong gust of wind swept over the sullen sheet of the water. It caused a trembling to run along the surface, as though it shuddered. Then thousands of ripples showed themselves, becoming larger and larger, until they swelled into countless short, choppy waves, curling over and tossing their white crests in the air. "Are you a good sailor?" Marsh asked Hautefeuille. "However, it does not matter. I was mistaken in my calculations. The _Jenny_ will not get much tossing about, after all.--We're going before the wind and will soon be under the shelter of the coast. Look! There is the Porto-Fino lighthouse. As soon as we have rounded the cape, we shall be out of danger."