Again his thoughts wandered, and, as he gazed into the blue ocean, he called up a picture of another land. The lofty rugged mountains of Snowdonia, the iron-bound coast, washed by the waves of the Irish Channel, the ebbing and flowing waters of the Menai Straits, a house which had stood the wear and tear of ages, embowered in its trees near the beautiful Conway. Would Dona Isabel--pshaw! "Take a pull at the larboard braces, let fly the fore and main royal halyards. In with the canvas, my lads. Starboard the helm," shouted the captain, as the breeze from the south struck the brig, filling her remaining canvas, and making her heel over, as she gradually gathered way. "Steady! so!" and the bubbles began to glide by the vessel's side, the noise of the water slapping up against her bows, and the rattle of the blocks and tackle, as the canvas filled, and everything drawing, the "Halcyon," close hauled, on a taut bowline, stood her course as near as possible. Gradually the wind freshened, and when Hughes and Captain Weber turned in at midnight, the "Halcyon" was working her way through the seas crested with foam, in that peculiar jerking manner usual to vessels close hauled; but with little cargo, and what there was light, she made splendid weather of it, topping the great waves, or wallowing in the trough, though, as Captain Weber emphatically observed, slapping his hand down on the cabin hatchway, "She didn't ship an egg-spoonful of water." "Hands by the royal sheets and halyards. In royals. Mr Lowe, see to the royal braces," were the words heard, as the two stepped below, about midnight. Morning was scarcely dawning over the ocean as Captain Weber again made his appearance on deck. According to a seaman's instinct, his first glance was directed aloft, his second to the compass. "Ah, I thought you would have a reef in the topsails before morning, Blount, and I see I am right." "We had better go about soon, Captain Weber," replied the mate; "there is a little westing in the gale since midnight, and the brig has lain up a couple of points." "We will stand on until we make the coast of Madagascar, Blount; we must have made a good deal of southing, there are no islands between us and the coast, except `Barren Islands,' and they lie far away to the northward." "How's her head now, Jones?" asked the mate. "South-east and by south, sir," replied the man at the wheel. "Then we shall fetch Cape Saint Vincent on the Madagascar coast; and it will have been a long leg."