"Barradas—Barradas!" he never ceased to mutter. "How the wheel of fortune turns! What fiend brought us together again? But fate is fate, and there is an end of it!"
Consequently, right glad was he to avail himself of a fortnight on shore at the Canaries, till the Hermione was reported ready for sea, and had the blue peter fluttering at her new foremast head.
Rose found, in the Canaries, and boat visits to Santa Clara, Aleguenza, and Graciosa (three islets adjoining Lanzarota), and to the old Spanish Castle, which, in 1596, the Earl of Cumberland assailed at the head of 600 men-at-arms, ample materials for the diary she was keeping; and Ethel wrote letters to the Pages, and other dear friends at Acton-Rennel, dated from the Posado de St. Iago, opposite the Canal de Bocagna, detailing the terrors and dangers they had undergone, in such exaggerated terms as young ladies generally resort to when excited, or fired by a desire to run into flowery description.
A fine day in July—but all days are fine in that region, save those of October and November—saw the Hermione entirely refitted, her spars and hamper all a-taunto, under a heavy press of sail, once more at sea, and leaving the Cape of Mascona rapidly astern, while the sharp cone of Teneriffe rose as rapidly from the ocean on her weather-bow.
For some time after this the voyage was truly delightful, and, as Mr. Basset had anticipated, the change of scene and of air acted most beneficially on Ethel. She was in excellent medical hands, too; for young Dr. Heriot, though more disposed to be attentive to Rose, was unremitting in his care of Ethel, to whose pale cheek the colour was gradually returning.
The atmosphere, especially in the evening, under the quarter-deck awning, was charming, and a day seldom passed without something occurring to break the monotony of the voyage.
The Canary Isles were passed in succession; one day they had a glimpse of Africa, about twenty miles distant. It was the great headland forming the extremity of Jebel Kahl, or the Black Mountains of Sahara.
Low, and dim, and distant looked that little strip of blue coast. How strange to think it was a portion of that vast continent of perils and wonders—the land of Park, Lander, Livingstone, Speke, and Grant!
After leaving the Canaries they had a tedious calm for nearly three days—a fresh delay.
The ocean was still as the waters of an English mere in summer. The sails hung straight and motionless upon the yards, though the ship kept sheering round from time to time, her bowsprit pointing to all the points of the compass in slow succession, and occasional swells that heaved slowly up and sunk noiselessly down in the glassy sea, jerked the neglected rudder and its wheel a few inches to and fro.