Roderic gloried in the fact that he had never been sea sick a minute in his life, and he had also seen some pretty rough times afloat, from being caught in a dreadful typhoon in the China sea to being wrecked by a West India hurricane.
He had provided himself with Clarke Russell's latest ocean yarn, and as his own condition was fully equal to that so aptly described by this wizard of sea stories, he could doubly appreciate the vivid descriptions of storm and calm, hot chase and wreck, and all the manifold phases of life on the boundless deep, given in a manner that has never been rivaled.
They also played shuffle board, tossed deck quoits and amused themselves as pilgrims on the briny ocean learn to do when time hangs heavy.
Roderic read aloud some of the most remarkable passages which bore the witchery of pen genius, and glancing up at the swelling white sails or around at the watery horizon only marked by a wave crest circle, they were in a position to feel the vigor of the description such as no landsman, lounging in a hammock, far from the sea, which mayhap he had never gazed upon, could ever experience.
Numerous vessels were sighted during the first day, steamers and sailing craft.
There is always keen pleasure watching these pilgrims of the deep through the glasses and surmising what they are, the nature of their cargo, whence they come and whither bound.
After this day such sights would become more rare, for their course was out of the usual transatlantic run.
Doubtless in the good old days when galleons laden with silver and other treasures from the Spanish Main and Mexican mines were on this route to Spain, many a piratical craft bore along this self same course with men alow and aloft on the keen lookout for rich prizes which could be looted, and scuttled with their wretched crews, their fate ever to remain one of the mysteries of the mighty deep.
Such romantic thoughts crept into Roderic's mind—the situation was conducive to their inception.
Besides, his own fortunes were really as much tinged with the spicy flavor of adventure and romance as any he could imagine in connection with those olden days.