Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/277

Rh how far from land, if I had not felt that the fellow was covertly grinning at me, and that I should never have heard the last of it from Ruby, I should have come straight back to town, which would have been a wiser thing than what I actually did do. I entrusted myself in a cranky boat to the mercy of the, literally, foaming billows."

Again Mr. Golden paused. It might have been imagination, but it seemed to the Hon. Augustus that, at the mere recollection of that experience of the horrors of the ocean, Mr. Golden became a little yellow.

"I am not ashamed, Mr. Champnell, to own that I am no sailor. I have felt qualms upon the Thames. What I suffered in that cockle-shell of a boat, tossed hither and thither amidst that seething mass of waters—I don't know if it was blowing or raining hardest—I will not now attempt to describe. When I reached the Stormy Petrel I was more dead than alive. Lord Hardaway received me on deck; he was, evidently, suffering no inconvenience from the weather. 'Hollo, Golden,' he said, 'you're looking queer.' 'If, my lord,' I answered, 'I am looking as queer as I feel I must be looking very queer indeed. I had no idea before I left town that such a storm was raging.' 'Storm!' he said, 'you don't call this a storm. It's only a capful of wind! Come below and have a peg?' I went downstairs and I had some brandy; then I must have had another attack of illness, because the next thing I can remember is Lord Hardaway clapping me on the shoulder and exclaiming, 'I say, Golden, where are those jewels of yours?’"