He felt pleasantly as if he had been cut loose from all old conditions and were sailing between skies to some unknown planet.

This was not only because of the strange waters rushing underfoot but because of the flowering and singing of something within him that made the world into which he was sailing an alien place, heavenly desirable.

A week ago that day _The Aloha_ had weighed anchor, and these seven days, in fairly fortunate weather, her white nose had been cleaving seas to traverse which had so long been her owner's dream; and yet her owner, in pleasant apostasy, had turned his back upon the whole matter of what he had been used to dream, and now ungratefully spent his time in trying to count the hours to his journey's end.
Somewhere out yonder, he reflected, as he leaned on the rail, this southern moonlight was flooding whatever scene _she_ looked on; the lapping of the same sea was in her ears; and his future and hers might be dependent upon those two perplexed tan-coloured greyhounds below.

By which one would have said that matters had been going briskly forward with St.George since the morning that he had breakfasted with Olivia Holland.
Exactly when the end of the journey would be was not evident either to him or to the two strange creatures who proposed to be his guides.

Or rather to Jarvo, who was still the spokesman; lean little Akko, although his intelligence was unrivaled, being content with monosyllables for stepping-stones while the stream of Jarvo's soft speech flowed about him.