“Why! no, Mr. Sprigg. I don’t consider this rough; I’m rather a good sailor, you know. I simply wasn’t hungry at tea-time.” Mr. Sprigg came closer. “By the way, Miss Fairfax,” he insinuated. “You know Lieutenant Howard is on board. If you’d like to have a peep at him, just say the word and I’ll manage. Oh!” he added, hastily, as a slight frown marred Miss Fairfax’s pretty brows, “I know you must be interested in his case. He’s a friend of Lieutenant Loving, and I read the notice in the paper to-day, you know.” The look the girl gave him drove the smirk in haste from his face. “The notice in the paper was entirely without foundation, Mr. Sprigg,” she declared, coldly. “As for seeing Mr. Howard, I’m afraid my tastes do not run in that direction. Besides, he probably would not like to be stared at. He was a gentleman once, you know.” She turned impatiently away and looked eastward. Then she uttered an exclamation. “Why! Whatever’s happened to the water?” she cried. The question was not surprising. In the last hour the sea had changed. From a smiling playfellow, lightly buffeting the ship, it had grown cold and sullen. The sparkles had died from the waves, giving place to a metallic lustre. Long, slow undulations swelled out of the southeast, chasing each other sluggishly up in the wake of the ship. It did not need a sailor’s eye to tell that something was brewing. Miss Fairfax shivered slightly and drew her light wrap closer around her. “Makes you feel cold, don’t it?” asked Mr. Sprigg cheerfully. “Lord bless you, that’s nothing to the way you’ll feel before it’s over. Funny the weather bureau didn’t give us any storm warnings before we sailed.” The weather bureau had, but the warnings had been thrown away, unposted, by a sapient native official of San Juan, who considered the efforts of the Americans to foretell the weather to be immoral. “Will there be any danger?” “Danger? Naw! Not a bit of it. If you stay below, you won’t even know that there’s been anything doing. Even if we run into a hurricane, which ain’t likely, we’ll be just as safe as if we were ashore. The Queen don’t need to worry about anything short of an island or a derelict.” “A derelict?” “Sure. A ship that has been abandoned at sea for some reason or other, but that ain’t been broken up or sunk. Derelicts are real terrors, all right.” “Some of ’em float high; they ain’t so bad, because you can usually see ’em in time to dodge, and because they ain’t likely to be solid enough to do you much damage even if you do run into them. But some of ’em float low--just awash--and they’re just-- Well, they’re mighty bad. They ain’t really ships any more; they’re solid bulks of wood.” “I suppose they are all destroyed sooner or later?”