Page:The Great Secret.djvu/103

Rh Yes, the flakes were coming down heavily and driving about wildly, for the wind had risen during the afternoon. The ship also was pitching a little on those long, wide Antarctic rollers, pitching more than she had done in the tempestuous Bay of Biscay, for the southern ocean rollers sweep higher and wider apart than any other waves.

But even the most delicate amongst those adventurers were not much inconvenienced by this motion. They had now their sea-legs, therefore eat their dinner calmly as if they had been in a hotel.

The engines were working in good order, and the fuel still plentiful, while as for provisions they were not likely to run short for the next twelve months, so that, having everything to comfort them, they were fairly content and happy.

The Princess Sebastopol was a tall, flaxen-haired, white-skinned, blue-eyed Muscovite. She had been sent with her husband to Siberia for Nihilism, but they had made their escape. She was thirty years younger than the prince, who, being a very commonplace old man, who seldom opened his mouth or put himself forward, it is not worth while describing. His one passion was well founded jealousy of his young wife, who was a cold-blooded and shameless coquette, yet he had the discretion to keep his passion and misery to himself.

The Countess de Bergamont had modelled herself for years after the style of the fashionable demi-monde of Paris. Her hair was golden, her eyebrows pencilled, her cheeks rouged and powdered, still she looked well, and conducted herself as her models do. She had been in several prisons, as also had her husband, and not always for political reasons. The count was a thin, little, bald-headed man, with sharp features, well known