“There goes his foresail, again—­and here is another lull!” rejoined Gardiner.  “I tell you, Mr. Hazard, we shall have a shift of wind—­nothing short of which could save either of us from these breakers.”

“Which comes from the marcy of God Almighty, through the intercession of his only Son!” added Stimson, with the same fervour of manner, though he spoke in a very low tone of voice.

Roswell Gardiner was again surprised, and for another moment he forgot the gale and its dangers.  Gale it was no longer, however, for the lull was now decided, and the two cables of the schooner were distended only when the roll of the seas came in upon her.  This wash of the waves still menaced the other schooner, driving her down towards the breakers, though less rapidly than before.

“Why don’t the fellow anchor!” exclaimed Gardiner, in his anxiety, all care for himself being now over.  “Unless he anchor, he will yet go into the white water, and be lost!”

“So little does he think of that, that he is turning out his reefs,” answered Hazard.  “See! there is a hand aloft loosening his topsail—­and there goes up a whole mainsail, already!”

Sure enough, Daggett appeared more disposed to trust to his canvass, than to his ground-tackle.  In a very brief space of time he had his craft under whole sail, and was struggling, in the puffs, to claw off the land.  Presently, the wind ceased altogether, the canvass flapping so as to be audible to Gardiner and his companions, at the distance of half a mile.  Then, the cloth was distended in the opposite direction, and the wind came off the land.  The schooner’s head was instantly brought to meet the seas, and the lead dropped at her side showed that she was moving in the right direction.  These sudden changes, sometimes destructive, and sometimes providential as acts of mercy, always bring strong counter-currents of air in their train.

“Now we shall have it!” said Hazard—­“a true nor’wester, and butt-end foremost!”

This opinion very accurately described that which followed.  In ten minutes it was blowing heavily, in a direction nearly opposite to that which had been the previous current of the wind.  As a matter of course, the Sea Lion of the Vineyard drew off the land, wallowing through the meeting billows that still came rolling in from the broad Atlantic; while the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond tended to the new currents of air, and rode, as it might be, suspended between the two opposing forces, with little or no strain on her cables.  Gardiner expected to see his consort stand out to sea, and gain an offing; but, instead of this, Captain Daggett brought his schooner quite near to the disabled vessel, and anchored.  This act of neighbourly kindness was too unequivocal to require explanation.  It was the intention of the Vineyard men to lie by their consort until she was relieved from all apprehensions of danger.  The ‘butt-end’ of the ‘nor’-wester’