Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

CHARLES COMES TO LIFE AGAIN. 315
was not he the favorite among them? As for wonder and excitement, there was plenty of that, and it promised to last. Why,
the ship herself was a wonder. The biggest in the world, carrying 500 men and horses; and every man in the ship knew, before
she had been five hours at sea, that that quiet-looking commander
of hers was going to race her out under steam the whole way.
Who could tire of wondering at the glimpse one got down the
iron-railed well into the machinery, at the busy cranks and leaping pistons, or, when tired of that, at the strange, dim vista of
swinging horses between decks? Wonder and excitement
enough here to keep twenty Don Quixotes going! Her very
name, too, was romantic, - HIMALAYA.
A northeast wind and a mountain of rustling white canvas
over head. Blue water that seethed and creamed, and roared
past to leeward. A calm, and the Lizard to the north, a dim
gray cape. A southwest wind, and above a mighty cobweb of
sail-less rigging. Topgallant masts sent down and yards close
hauled. Still, through it all, the busy clack and rattle of the
untiring engine.
A dim wild sunset, and scudding prophet clouds that hurried
from the west across the crimson zenith, like witches towards a
sabbath. A wind that rose and grew as the sun went down, and
hummed aloud in the rigging as the bows of the ship dipped into
the trough of the waves, and failed almost into silence as she
raised them. A night of storm and terror; in the morning, the
tumbling broken seas of Biscay. A few fruit brigs scudding
wildly here and there; and a cape on a new land. A high
round down, showing a gleam of green among the flying mists.
Sail set again before a northerly wind, and the ship rolling
before it like a jolly drunkard. Then a dim cloud of smoke before
them. Then the great steamer Bussorah, thundering forward
against the wind, tearing furiously at the leaping seas with her
iron teeth. A hurried glimpse of fluttering signals, and bare, wet
empty decks; and, before you had time to say what a noble ship
she was, and what good weather she was making of it, only a
cloud of smoke miles astern.
Now a dark line, too faint for landsmen's eyes, far ahead, which
changed into a loom of land, which changed into a cloud, which
changed into a dim peak towering above the sea mists, which
changed into a tall crag, with a town, and endless tiers of white
fortification, - Gibraltar.
Then a strong west wind for three days, carrying the ship
flying before it with all plain sail set. And each day, at noon, a
great excitement on the quarter-deck, among the officers. On
the third day much cheering and laughter, anad shaking of hands
with the commander. Charles, catching an opportunity, took