Roderic's praise was so unstinted that the old captain, who loved his craft as only a seaman may, was quite tickled. He had taken a great liking for Owen, which was not at all strange, for they were both men built very much upon the same model, possessing sterling characteristics. Perhaps it was apt to become something of a mutual admiration society, for Roderic recognized a kindred spirit--what he admired in a man and sought to exemplify in his own person was present in the composition of this rough and ready British sailorman. It also pleased him to know Cleo had been fortunate enough to secure such a reliable mariner, and yet he realized this was as much the result of good judgment on her part as any luck. At least he would never suspect that the Virginia maid had immediately fancied the grim old mariner because she discovered many of his sterling characteristics to be the same as those she had admired in Roderic from boyhood. That was her secret which she would hardly have acknowledged even to her own heart. The weather too was propitious. A splendid breeze blew, and as they were provided with sails, these were utilized in order to further increase their speed. Roderic gloried in the fact that he had never been sea sick a minute in his life, and he had also seen some pretty rough times afloat, from being caught in a dreadful typhoon in the China sea to being wrecked by a West India hurricane. He had provided himself with Clarke Russell's latest ocean yarn, and as his own condition was fully equal to that so aptly described by this wizard of sea stories, he could doubly appreciate the vivid descriptions of storm and calm, hot chase and wreck, and all the manifold phases of life on the boundless deep, given in a manner that has never been rivaled. They also played shuffle board, tossed deck quoits and amused themselves as pilgrims on the briny ocean learn to do when time hangs heavy. Roderic read aloud some of the most remarkable passages which bore the witchery of pen genius, and glancing up at the swelling white sails or around at the watery horizon only marked by a wave crest circle, they were in a position to feel the vigor of the description such as no landsman, lounging in a hammock, far from the sea, which mayhap he had never gazed upon, could ever experience. Numerous vessels were sighted during the first day, steamers and sailing craft. There is always keen pleasure watching these pilgrims of the deep through the glasses and surmising what they are, the nature of their cargo, whence they come and whither bound. After this day such sights would become more rare, for their course was out of the usual transatlantic run.