Wyndham overheard these remarks now and then. The captain openly delighted in him.
"The ship will never be lucky again when you leave her," he said. "You're worth a free passage to any captain. Why you keep us all in good humor. Passengers, emigrants, sailors and all. Here, come along. I thought you rather a gloomy young chap when first I set eyes on you; but now—ah, well, you were homesick. Quite accountable. Here, I have a request from the second mate, and one or two more of the jack tars down there. They want you to sing them a song after supper. They say it isn't fair that we should have you to ourselves in the saloon."
Gerald laughed, said he would be happy to oblige the sailors, and walked away.
"As jolly a chap as ever I laid eyes on," muttered the captain. "I liked him from the first, but I was mistaken in him. I thought him gloomy. Not a bit. I wonder his wife could bear to let him out of her sight. I wouldn't if I were a lass. There, hark to him now! Bless me, we are having a pleasant voyage this time."
So they were. No one was ill; the amount of rough weather was decidedly below the average, and cheerfulness and contentment reigned on board.
The ship touched at Teneriffe, but only for a few hours, and then sped on her way to the Cape. It was now getting very hot, and an awning was spread over the deck. Under this the saloon passengers sat, and smoked and read. No one suspected, no one had the faintest shadow of a suspicion that black care lurked anywhere on board that happy ship, least of all in the breast of the merriest of its crew. Gerald Wyndham.
The Esperance reached the Cape in safety, there some of the passengers, Gerald amongst them, landed, for the captain intended to lie at anchor for twenty-four hours. Then again they were away, and now they were told they must expect colder weather for they were entering the Southern Ocean, and were approaching high latitudes of polar cold. They would have to go through the rough sea of the "Roaring Forties," and then again they would emerge into tropical sunshine.
Soon after they left the Cape, little Cecily Harvey fell ill. She caught a chill and was feverish, and the doctor and her mother forbade her to go on deck. She was only eight years old, a pretty, winsome child. Gerald felt a special tenderness for her, for she reminded him of his own little sister Joan. During this illness she often lay for hours in his arms, with her little feverish cheek pressed against his, and her tiny hot hand comforted by his firm cool clasp.
"Mr. Wyndham," she said on one of these occasions. "I wish you wouldn't do it."
"Do what, Cecily?"