glass, and there was just breeze enough to fill
the topsails of the good ship, as she swam
majestically out of the roadstead. Before long
Odessa, its busy quays, its many masts, white
houses, and church roofs of various bright
colours, faded away from our sight, and the tall
ships themselves were hull down in the haze of
distance.

Mr. Brackley had brought his daughter, and
his daughter's trunks and bandboxes, on board
in very good time. He tried to feign supreme
content and cheerfulness, spoke of Marian's
voyage as a mere holiday trip, and her absence
as of trifling duration, and did his best to be
jovial and light of spirit. But there was a good
deal of pain behind this mask of gaiety; it was
the merchant's first separation from the darling
child with whose life and happiness his very
heart-strings were knit up, and it was plain that
to say farewell cost him a sharp pang. There
were tears in Marian Brackley's eyes too, but
she bravely kept them back. She knew,
probably, that had she given way to grief her
father would have been quite unmanned. I
turned away my own eyes not to see the last
embrace between parent and child, and made
myself purposely deaf to the last few broken
words of parting, and then the shore boat, the
rowers of which had long been getting uneasy
and impatient, was cast off, and we saw Mr.
Brackley standing up in the stern-sheets, waving
his hat and hand as long as hat and hand con-
tinued to be visible. Then old Captain Veltrivitch
led the sobbing girl down to her state-room.

"Better rest a little while, my dear," said he,
in his slowly uttered but perfectly pure English;
"I am your father's deputy, and I must not let
you break your heart on the first day of the
voyage."

The arrangements of the Seven Angels were
comfortable enough. There was a large and
handsome cabin —  what in a regular packet would
have been dubbed the saloon —  and into this all
our state-rooms, as well as the captain's cabin
and steward's pantry, opened. The deep stern
windows offered the most delightful cool and
snug lounging places, where the ear was soothed
by the eternal wash and ripple of the water as
it seethed and swelled under the ship's counter
and against the rudder, and through the windows
themselves was to be seen a stretch of dimpling
blue waves, framed as in a picture. There was
a stern gallery too, where we could idle in fine
weather, and the lofty poop, with its awning to
keep off the strong rays of the Eastern sun, was
a point of observation from which we could look
out while enjoying the breeze.

We had nothing to find fault with, for not
only was a good table kept, but, thanks to the
liberality of the owners, there was a cow on
board, and we had fresh milk, the rarest of
luxuries in a Mediterranean voyage. But,
indeed, we were bidden to consider ourselves
rather as guests than as paying passengers, and
it was undeniable that the proprietors of the
Seven Angels had no eye to screwing a profit
out of our fare.

The ship was a fine one, but a slow sailer; even
a seaman's partiality could not help acknowledging
that, and though I was not very experienced
in maritime matters, I could not but imagine
that the Seven Angels was more fit for the calm
than the rough of ocean life. The fine weather
which witnessed our departure from Odessa
proved fickle, and a bout of stormy weather
succeeded, during which the huge old vessel groaned
and creaked in a most lugubrious manner, shipped
so many seas that the hatches had to be battened
down and the ports made fast, and sprung a
leak, which kept the grumbling crew busy at the
pumps. But Captain Veltrivitch handled her
skilfully, and when the gale fell the leak was
adroitly stopped, and the clang of chain and
lever ceased. Still, the wind continued provokingly
variable, and we were repeatedly forced
out of our course, and driven far to the westward
over the muddy waters of the Black Sea —
waters more shallow and dirty, but more perilous
to navigators, than any in the Levant. At last
we bore up for Trebizond, where the oil destined
to complete our cargo was taken in, and where
the Armenian caulkers soon patched up the
vessel's injured side, and then we sailed again.

"Slow work, Millington, but not, I hope, dull
or comfortless," said Spiridion, gaily; " we have
paid our forfeit to Neptune, and shall probably
bowl from the Dardanelles to the Mersey as
smoothly as a Cowes yacht in the Solent. The
barometer tells a very satisfactory tale."

These words were spoken on the evening
which witnessed our departure from Trebizond,
as we stood under the awning that shaded the
poop, gazing now upon the white and yellow
town, lessening to Lilliputian proportions as we
made sail to seawards, now towards the west,
where a blended web of colours, with crimson
predominating, stained all the sunset waters.
Spiridion was in high spirits on that evening;
he insisted on bringing Miss Brackley's guitar
on deck, and sang us several songs in different
languages, playing a masterly accompaniment,
for he was a capital musician. Captain Veltrivitch,
on the other hand, was restless and ill at
ease, made curt and peevish answers to any
remark addressed to him, and was, for the first
time, very bad company. The wind served us
well that night, but on the following day, which
was sultry and oppressive, light puffs of air
succeeded to the steady breeze, and after wasting
much time and trouble in incessant tacks and
changes of course, we finally lay-to for the night,
some five miles from the coast of Asia Minor.

How well I remember that evening, with the
purple mountains of Anatolia looming in the
distance, and the sun going down, blood red, on
the European side. There was no cause for
apprehension, and it had been out of a prudent
resolve to avoid the chance of a collision during
the darkness with some of the numerous craft
that swarm about the entrance to the Bosphorus,
that our commander had resolved on lying by
for the night. Tomorrow we should see the
Castles before noon, and, a few hours later,
Constantinople itself.