Overhead, the dark blue sky was clear and cloudless, save where a long black pennon of wavy smoke streamed far astern from the glowing funnel of "Our Lady of Assistance," and all was still save the ceaseless and monotonous dashing of the paddle-wheels, and the measured clank of the engines, as we ploughed along the lovely Spanish shore, and towards midnight saw that point of land on which no Briton can gaze without an emotion of pride, the Cape of Trafalgar. CHAPTER XV. THE CIRCASSIAN CAPTAIN. On board the steamer our attention had been repeatedly attracted, and our interest--mine, at least--excited by a fellow-passenger, whose manner, costume, and bearing were too remarkable to escape notice. His figure was tall and handsomely formed; his features, pale and like marble, were cast in the most pure and severe model of classic beauty; his nose was long and straight; his black eye-brows nearly met over it in one unbroken line; a fierce mustache stuck out on each side, giving great expression to a mouth, the lips of which were generally compressed, and in expression stern. Altogether, his face had in it more of pure intellect and pictorial manly beauty than any I had ever seen. His costume was a scarlet forage cap, the tassel of which drooped on his right shoulder, and a loose tunic of dark green cloth, the cuffs, collar, and skirts of which were trimmed with sables; but this peculiar garment, like his long military boots, seemed well worn, or as Jack said, "decidedly shabby." He remained very much aloof from the passengers, and either sat or walked apart, communing apparently with himself, and smoking a huge pipe, the aspect of which was as foreign as his own. A figure so melo-dramatic on board of a steamer--even a Spanish one--was too remarkable in the present day to escape notice, and I repeatedly drew Slingsby's attention to him; but honest Jack had not quite recovered the effect of the start given him last night on the hills of Trohniona, and replied briefly,-- "An interesting foreigner, eh! that will sound very well to the ears of a novel-reading miss at home; but such personages excite a very different feeling in me. A seedy sharper! I am sick, Ramble, of your interesting foreigners; they are invariably swindlers, refugees, and all that sort of thing, unless we except the poor monkeys in the Zoological gardens," and so Jack assumed a sulky air of reserve, while our voyager in the furs and long boots smoked his huge meerschaum to leeward, and all unconscious that he was an object of remark or interest to any one.