"I think, O'Grady," Captain O'Driscol said, two days later, "we are going to have our opportunity, for unless I am mistaken there is going to be a change of weather. Those clouds banking up ahead look like a gale from the southwest." Before night the wind was blowing furiously, and the _Sea-horse_ taking green sea over her bows and wallowing gunwale under in the waves. At daylight, when they went on deck, gray masses of cloud were hurrying overhead and an angry sea alone met the eye. Not a sail was in sight, and the whole convoy had vanished. "We are out of sight of the fleet, O'Grady," Captain O'Driscol said, grimly. "I felt sure we should be," O'Grady said, triumphantly. "Sorra one of them could keep foot with us." "They are ahead of us, man," O'Driscol said, angrily; "miles and miles ahead." "Ahead, is it? You must know better, O'Driscol; though it is little enough you know of ships. You see we are close-hauled, and there is no doubt that that is the vessel's strong point. Why, we have dropped the rest of them like hot potatoes, and if this little breeze keeps on, maybe we shall be in the Tagus days and days before them." O'Driscol was too exasperated to argue. "O'Driscol is a good fellow," O'Grady said, turning to Terence, "but it is a misfortune that he is so prejudiced. Now, what is your own opinion?" "I have no opinion about it, Captain O'Grady. I have a very strong opinion that I am not going to enjoy my breakfast, and that this motion does not agree with me at all. I have been ill half the night. Dick Ryan is awfully bad, and by the sounds I heard I should say a good many of the others are the same way. On the main deck it is awful; they have got the hatches battened down. I just took a peep in and bolted, for it seemed to me that everyone was ill." "The best plan, lad, is to make up your mind that you are quite well. If you once do that you will be all right directly." Terence could not for the moment reply, having made a sudden rush to the side. "I don't see how I can persuade myself that I am quite well," he said, when he returned, "when I feel terribly ill." "Yes, it wants resolution, Terence, and I am afraid that you are deficient in that. It must not be half-and-half. You have got to say to yourself, 'This is glorious; I never enjoyed myself so well in my life,' and when you have said that and feel that it is quite true, the whole thing will be over." "I don't doubt it in the least," Terence said; "but I can't say it without telling a prodigious lie, and worse still, I could not believe the lie when I had told it." "Then I am afraid that you must submit to be ill, Terence. I know once that I had a drame, and the drame was that I was at sea and horribly sea-sick, and I woke up and said to myself, 'This is all nonsense, I am as well as ever I was;' and, faith, so I was." Ill as Terence was, he burst into a fit of laughter.