Admiral Lawrence was walking the deck alone. Captain Weaver stood on the weather side of the wheel viewing the vessel as she leisurely floated forward. They had kept a look-out aloft with the perseverance of a whaler. The signalman was furnished with a glass with which he continuously swept the sea-line from beam to beam. The Admiral, great as his trouble was, looked uncommonly well and hearty. His cheeks wore a deeper dye of colour. He rolled along the deck with enjoyment of the sensation of the plank, whose motions were timed by the sea. As he rounded in one of his fore-breakfast strolls, Captain Acton stepped out of the deck-house, for this schooner was furnished with a deck structure a little sunk so that you entered it by a short flight of steps, and in front of it stood the wheel. The house contained six berths each lighted with a window; the foremost larboard berth was the pantry, and next door to it, abutting upon the sleeping place which the Admiral occupied, was the spare room for Lucy. Captain Acton's face as he emerged was grave and pale. His restlessness and anxiety had increased with the voyage and the obstruction of the wind. Realisation of the loss of his daughter was a pain in him that was as a wound deeply planted, and there was no remedy but the recovery of the girl. He joined the Admiral after looking aloft and around him, and exclaimed: "Very slow work, sir. If it's to be this sort of thing the _Minorca_ will not find us at Rio; and if she fetches Rio before we do, my child is lost to me." "I cannot see that, sir," answered the Admiral. "What can my son do? She will not have him, and he must therefore leave her at Rio, because I have never imagined that he will be able to sell the barque and her cargo without exciting enquiries which he dare not challenge. If therefore he puts into Rio, it will be with the hope of inducing Miss Lucy to marry him there and promptly--an issue which he will have satisfied himself upon before his arrival. And if, as 'tis certain, she will have nothing to do with him, he will leave her at Rio and make haste to sail to where he can dispose of your property without risk. But," he continued cheerily, observing that his companion held his peace, manifestly unconvinced by the Admiral's arguments, "we have no right to assume that the weather is always to consist of baffling breezes or light airs like this; and, sir, consider that what is bad for the schooner may--indeed should--be bad for the barque. There is but one course for Rio from the port we hail from. I have watched Weaver's navigation with anxiety, and have full confidence in his judgment. I have again and again considered his chart and prickings, and in all that he said and says I have agreed, and still agree."