"Ay, sir, that's all very well, but it's different for all that on board ship; there may come a lurch when you least look for it, and then the surest-footed and the surest-handed is sometimes outwitted. You'll excuse my mentioning of it, sir, but you're a bonny young gentleman, and you has the goodwill of everyone on board."
"Thank you, Mrs. Notley, I like to hear you say so. It is pleasant to be liked."
"Ah, sure you are that, and no mistake, and you'll forgive me mentioning it, sir, but you'll be careful, won't you? You ain't married for sure, for your face is too lightsome for that of a married man. But maybe you has a mother and a sweetheart, and you might think of them, sir, and not be over daring."
Wyndham's face grew suddenly white.
"As it happens I have neither a mother nor sweetheart," he said. Then he turned away somewhat abruptly, and Mrs. Notley feared she had offended him.
The sailors prophesied "dirty weather;" they expected it, for this was the roughest part of the voyage. Gerald was very fond of talking to the sailors and getting their opinions. He strolled over to where a group of them were standing now, and they pointed to some ugly looking clouds, and told him that the storm would be on them by night.
Nothing very bad, or to be alarmed at, they said, still a rough and nasty sea, with a bit of a gale blowing. The women and children wouldn't like it, poor things, and it would be a dark night too, no moon.
Gerald asked a few more questions.
"I have a great anxiety to see a storm," he said. "If it gets really stormy, I'll come up; I can shelter beside the man at the wheel."