"Holiday, boy?" he cried, in so wild and passionate a tone that I was startled, and looked at him wonderingly as he turned away. "I--I beg your pardon," I said apologetically. "I'm afraid I have blurted out something which I ought not to have said." "Never mind--never mind," he said, with his head averted; "of course you could not know." He sank down on the edge of his berth with so sad and dejected a look that I rose and went to him. "Pray forgive me," I said. "I did not know." He looked up at me with his face drawn and old. "Thank you," he said, taking my hand. "There is nothing to forgive, my lad. You may as well know, though. Brother-officers ought to be brotherly, even if they are a little strange. It was a case of illness. I took some one home--to save her life, and--" He was silent for some moments, and I could feel his hand tremble as he pressed mine very hard, and seemed to be making a desperate effort to be calm, and master the emotion which evidently thrilled him. "God knows best," I heard him whisper, hardly above his breath. And then aloud, "I am going back to my duties, you see--alone." The painful silence which followed was broken by the sound of a bell, and he started up quite a changed man. "There!" he said, in a strange tone, "soldiers have no time for sorrow. It is the dead march, Vincent. Then a volley over the grave, and a march back to quarters to a lively quick-step. Come, brother-officer, we are abreast of Gravesend: as far as we shall go to-night, and there's the dinner-bell. Right shoulder forward. March!" "No," I said to myself. "I am sorry for him, but he is too strange. I shall never like Captain Brace." CHAPTER FIVE. Rough weather as soon as we were out of the mouth of the Thames gave me something else to think about, and I did not spend much time in calculating whether I liked Captain Brace or not; but I suppose I behaved pretty well, for in two days I went on deck feeling a little faint, and as if the great ship was playing at pretending to sink beneath my feet. "Come, that's good," said a familiar voice; and I found Captain Brace had crossed over to where I was holding on by the bulwark, looking at the distant shore. "Why, Vincent, you are a better sailor than I am." I smiled at him in rather a feeble manner. "Oh, I mean it," he said. "It has been very rough for the past forty-eight hours, and I have been, as you know, pretty queer, but I forced myself to get up this morning, and it has done me no end of good. I have been down to see the men, thinking I would rouse them up, but, poor fellows, they are all so utterly miserable that I think I'll leave them alone to-day."