He pointed on the quarter where streaks of fine weather were expanding and lifting, lines and spaces of silver blue irradiating the ragged gloom of the firmament which was moving ponderously and slowly northwest. "You will find it cold," continued Hardy. "Go and wrap yourself up in the captain's cloak whilst I secure the wheel." Before he had secured the helm the girl returned apparelled as commanded, for to her his word was law. He then sank down in a chair near the wheel with his chin upon his breast, and the girl went forward to boil a kettle of water. She remained forward until some hot coffee was ready, and when she came aft with it she found her sweetheart sound asleep. It is not love that disturbs the sleeping sailor. It is love that watches and shields the repose of love, as the guardian angel the slumber of the baby. Julia looked at Hardy. How gaunt and hollow! How grim and bristly with the week's growth! Yet how peaceful in sleep, how manly in look, how dear to her; oh, how dear to her by loyal devotion, by beautiful honour, by self-respect, by his fear and his love of God! She sat on the deck beside him and drank a little coffee, and the dog lay at her feet. The helm was paralysed by the rope which secured the wheel, and the ship was slowly knocked by the head into the hollow of the swell; the topsail was aback, and the ship lay rolling quietly on the quieting folds with streamers of canvas swaying from the yard and from the stay. Julia continued to sit by her sleeping lover's side for more than half an hour, leaving him once only to see to the galley fire. When again she arose to attend to the fire the dog stood up and shook himself and sprang upon the taffrail to take a look around, and before Julia had stepped ten paces the noble animal was sounding in deep tones his report of a ship in sight. The noise awoke Hardy, who started and stood up, and Julia stayed where she was to look at the sea. Nearly right abeam, in the midst of the lifting bright weather whose suffusion of radiance was over the mastheads, was visible the feathering of a steamer's smoke. "It is something coming our way," said Hardy to Julia, and he took the glass, and pointed it. His hands trembled, and he steadied the tubes by grasping the vang of the gaff with them. After a long look--Julia was at his side--he said: "She rises fast. By her square yards I take her to be a man-of-war. If she is British she will be the help I have sometimes prayed for." He put down the glass, bent on the Red Ensign Jack down, and ran it aloft. "I will get you some hot coffee," said Julia. "Do you feel rested a little?" "I am good for an eight hours' spell," he replied, but he did not look so.