For the rest, he had been stricken with a fever--a malady common enough in those parts--but was better, and would start in something over a week, in the _Belle Fortune_, a barque of some 650 tons register, homeward bound with a cargo of sugar, spices, and coffee, and having a crew of about eighteen hands, with, he thought, one or two passengers.

The letter was full of strong hope and love, so that my mother, who trembled a little when she read about the fever, plucked up courage to smile again towards the close.

The ship would be due about October, or perhaps November.

So once more we had to resume our weary waiting, but this time with glad hearts, for we knew that before Christmas the days of anxiety and yearning would be over.
The long summer drew to a glorious and golden September, and so faded away in a veil of grey sky; and the time of watching was nearly done.

Through September the skies had been without cloud, and the sea almost breathless, but with the coming of October came dirty weather and a strong sou'-westerly wind, that gathered day by day, until at last, upon the evening of October 11th, it broke into a gale.