She recovered herself, however,
quickly, quivering and trembling as a live creature might do after
severe punishment; and we drove on, the strong arms at the wheel keeping
her well before the blast. In a very few minutes, I suppose (though it
seemed very long), I heard old Riddell say, "Sharp while it lasted, Mr.
Livingstone; but they're right to call it a squall. They've nothing down
here-away like a good right down hard gale."
I looked up, clearing my eyes, blinded with the hissing spray, just as
Guy answered, coolly as ever. He had run his arm through a becket, and
did not seem to have moved otherwise, whereas I disgraced myself by
falling at full length as the squall struck us.
"Ah! you've got difficult to please; it's always so when one sees so
much of life. Never mind, Riddell, the Mediterranean does its best, and
perhaps we'll go and try your tornadoes some day. Where's the _barca_
now?"
Where? The eyes that could have told you that must have looked a hundred
fathoms deep. There was not the faintest vestige of such a thing to be
seen--not even a shivered plank. The poor Capriotes' "bread-winner" had
gone the way of Antonio's argosies--another whet to the all-devouring
appetite, for which nothing that swims is too large or too small.
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