"Oh, but I do not think I should like that; at least, certainly not the last. It is one thing to go down to the bottom in fine weather, as we did when you were examining the wreck, and quite another to do the same when a hurricane is blowing. And, of the three alternatives, I really think I should prefer to remain on the surface of the sea, and watch all the wild commotion, if I could feel assured that we were quite safe." "You certainly may feel assured of that, my Lady," exclaimed von Schalckenberg. "With this ship afloat and in the open sea, you may laugh to scorn the fiercest gale. The wind may smite her in its wildest fury, the waves sweep her from end to end, and she will still go unharmed and undeterred on her way." "Then let us stay on the surface and risk it. I should love to witness a really furious storm, with the feeling that I was perfectly safe," said the lady. And so it was settled. But when Lady Olivia retired to her cabin that night the air was still calm, and the only difference perceptible to her was that, whereas earlier in the evening the sea had been almost perfectly smooth, her swinging bedstead was now swaying with a very perceptible movement due to the fact that a heavy westerly swell had arisen, and was now following the ship. It was not until close upon midnight that any very decided change occurred; and then came a shower that burst upon the ship with true tropical suddenness and violence, and in the midst of the shower the wind came away strong out of the westward, blowing in fierce, sudden gusts that quickly hardened down to a strong and rapidly increasing gale. When daylight laggingly came upon the scene the wind was blowing with true hurricane force, and a very high, steep sea was running, which would undoubtedly have been still higher had not the wind taken the crests of the seas, torn them off, and sent them flying away to leeward in blinding torrents of scud-water that lashed the walls of the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house with a sound like that of the continuous crash of hail. Although the ship's engines were set for a speed of only fifteen knots, she was going through the water at something more than twenty; yet, despite the fact that she was being swept from end to end by the wildly breaking seas that followed her, her movements were so easy and comfortable that Mildmay became quite enthusiastic upon the subject. Shortly before noon they sighted and passed, within a quarter of a mile, a big battleship. She was riding head to wind, and apparently steaming ahead dead slow, or, at all events, merely at a speed sufficient to give her steerage-way. She was making positively frightful weather of it, diving deeply into every sea, as it met her, and literally burying herself in a perfect smother of whiteness which had no time to flow off her decks ere she plunged into the next sea. And, strangely enough, within the hour they fell in with and passed a small gun-boat, undoubtedly British.