The woman was on her way to Cairo to join her husband, who had a place there in an English family as courier and valet. She had been sent home by the doctors for her health, and was now on her outward-bound voyage, with her little son.
She soon found that Jack was trustworthy, and she allowed her little Peter to be with him whenever Jack had time to amuse him. Old Colley, too, would set him on his knee, and tell him stories of the sea, and the names of the sea-birds, which often followed the ship, and would sometimes pounce down on any bit of biscuit or salt meat which might be on deck.
It was a pretty sight when little Peter's golden hair rested against Colley's blue jersey, and the child would put up his hand and stroke the stubby beard of his new friend, and say—
"I shall be a sailor when I grow up. I love the sea."
Then Colley would stroke his head and say—"In calm weather it's pleasant enough, boy. You wait till you have seen a storm."
The voyage out promised well till they came to the Bay of Biscay, when contrary winds and a storm drove the Galatea to take refuge in the port of Lisbon.
The captain was anxious to make his way to Constantinople, and against the advice of Colley and the second mate sailed out from Lisbon in rough weather.
"The storm is over," he said, "and I've no time to spend with the men kicking their heels aboard, or going ashore to get into mischief."
So the orders were given, and the Galatea went curtesying over the billows, under a bright sky, with all sails set.
"We are in the track of a storm, and if I'm not mistaken," Colley said, "we shall find ourselves in a worst plight before forty-eight hours have come and gone. I never saw the moon look as she did last night without a meaning."