"That is so, Ronald, and it's fortunate, if your feelings are in favour
of Maria Theresa, that we are not thinking of enlisting just at present,
for you would be puzzled which side to take. If you fought for her you
would have to fight under the Hanoverian; if you fight against the
Hanoverian you are fighting against Maria Theresa."

"Well, we don't want to fight at all," Ronald said. "What we want to do
is to find out something about my father. I wish the voyage was at an
end, and that we had our faces towards Paris."

"It will not be so easy to cross from Holland into France," Malcolm said.
"I wish our voyage was at an end for another reason, for unless I mistake
there is a storm brewing up."

Malcolm's prediction as to the weather was speedily verified. The wind
rose rapidly, ragged clouds hurried across the sky, and the waves got up
fast, and by nightfall the sea had become really heavy, dashing in sheets
high in the air every time the bluff bowed craft plunged into it. Long
before this Ronald had gone below prostrate with seasickness.

"It's just like the obstinacy of these Dutchmen," Malcolm muttered to
himself as he held on by a shroud and watched the labouring ship. "It
must have been clear to anyone before we were well out of the river that
we were going to have a gale, and as the wind then was nearly due south,
we could have run back again and anchored in shelter till it was over.
Now it has backed round nearly into our teeth, with every sign of its
getting into the north, and then we shall have the French coast on our
lee. It's not very serious yet, but if the wind goes on rising as it has
done for the last four or five hours we shall have a gale to remember