As the tall, slender form of the daughter of Maria Theresa walked in proud uprightness on to the barge, and up the gangway of the _Vanguard_, she looked the great Queen that she was. Her Majesty had her faults and plenty, but it was not in the face of peril that you saw them. The only one of all the Queen's household that had both the will and the power to help was Donna Rusidda, and she helped My Lady in mercy to the children. Indeed, she had the whole care of them whenever My Lady was waiting on the Queen, which was often, she doing the work of half a dozen servants, lest the Queen should ever lose the appearance of being a queen, at the moment when her dynasty seemed to be in the balance. There was much difference in the way they handled their charges. My Lady gathered them in a large motherly way, showing how strong in her lay the mother's instinct, which was never to have its full expression. They swarmed over her, little sick things, but bravely obeying their mother's behest not to cry or speak their fear. She fondled them, and crooned to them, and her great sympathetic nature was like a fire to warm their marrowless bones. Donna Rusidda, on the other hand, knew little of children, had no instinct for them; but even at such a moment they could not be indifferent to the prettiness of her slender person, undisordered in the least by the storm. She was beautiful, and undismayed, and full of tender smiles, and making jest of everything that flew from side to side, as the ship lurched over and stayed so long down that it looked as if it would never rise again. And then it did rise, and slowly climbing over the hill of its own centre, went down even deeper on the other side, with a crash of everything that could move. She knew of no more to amuse them than to bid them watch for the biggest lurch; and yet the picture of her unruffled courage and beauty, and the ring of her laugh, and her outstretched arms, won their childish hearts, more especially when, with two clinging to her, she called to Will, whom the Admiral had kept among the fugitives so close-packed in his state-room, to make the ladies of a better heart. And better, indeed, he could not have chosen for the purpose. As far as sickness went, I was as good a sailor as Will; and, as my fellows in the gun-room had often cheerfully pointed out, it was our profession to die an early and violent death. Which I was perfectly ready to do--much readier, indeed, when life was full of life, and I had a long life before me, than now when I am shelved. But Will, with his tall bolt-upright figure, his proud fair face, and his stern blue eyes, had as much effect as any of the saints they were beseeching could have had by appearing in the midst of them. Here was one beyond the reach, as it were, of human weaknesses. Indians have worshipped lesser white men as gods. The children, too, were glad of Will: he had often been about the Palace talking to them--indeed, he was the only officer in the