Almost the first of the company to wake in the morning and to come on deck was Bessie. The Blue Bird was plunging and tearing through a choppy sea, but the new sensation was delightful; she had never experienced anything like it before. New ideas, and new hopes and desires, seemed to be buffeted into her by the boisterous wind; above all, it was good to feel that she was really afloat with Gilbert on this great sea, and to know also that her father was safely on board with her. She encountered Gilbert; and for a moment or two they held hands shyly, the man forgetting readily enough all that had happened.
"Good morning," she said, ducking her head to avoid the wind, and laughing.
"Good morning, Bessie mine," he responded. "You look as fresh as a rose."
"You were not hurt with me for bringing poor father with me yesterday—were you?" she asked. "You see, I couldn't very well come alone—and poor father loves the sea; in fact he says that he has an adventurous spirit that has been kept severely in check. You didn't mind, did you?"
"I don't mind anything this morning," he assured her. "All the little cares and troubles and worries seem to have been left behind in the narrow life that I have lived; this morning I breathe a freer, better air, and you are with me; what more could any man desire? Come to breakfast, my dear; I'm hungry, if you're not."
In the midst of breakfast Mr. Daniel Meggison appeared, very much dishevelled, and with a wild and curious stare in his eyes not to be accounted for by the mere strangeness of his surroundings. During the progress of the meal he more than once broke out into a chuckle of laughter; and then checked himself, and became amazingly solemn. In the very act of cracking an egg he stopped, like one haunted, listening; chuckled again, and then became solemn again; and made a most surprising remark to Gilbert.
"Byfield—do you know what I did? It wasn't drink, because your man only brought me one in the course of a long and thirsty evening—and it wasn't dreams, because I slept soundly. But I"—he glanced over his shoulder, and his face became strangely convulsed again—"I opened the wrong cabin door!"
"Well—what of that?" asked Gilbert.