“I have!” he answered, with strong emphasis.  Then, after shading his face an instant with his hands, he arose, and added, with a melancholy smile:  “And now to my last duty for the twenty four hours.  Have you a disposition to look at the night?  So skilful and so stout a sailor should not seek her birth, without passing an opinion on the weather.”

The governess took his offered arm, and, with his aid, ascended the stairs of the cabin in silence, each seemingly finding sufficient employment in meditation.  She was followed by the more youthful, and therefore more active Gertrude, who joined them as they stood together, on the weather side of the quarter-deck.

The night was rather misty than dark.  A full and bright moon had arisen; but it pursued its path, through the heavens, behind a body of dusky clouds, that was much too dense for any borrowed rays to penetrate.  Here and there, a straggling gleam appeared to find its way through a covering of vapour less dense than the rest, and fell upon the water like the dim illumination of a distant taper.  As the wind was fresh and easterly, the sea seemed to throw upward from its agitated surface, more light, than it received; long lines of white, glittering foam following each other, and lending, at moments, a distinctness to the surface of the waters, that the heavens themselves wanted.  The ship was bowed low on its side; and, as it entered each rolling swell of the ocean, a wide crescent of foam was driven ahead, as if the element gambolled along its path.  But, though the time was propitious, the wind not absolutely adverse, and the heavens rather gloomy than threatening, an uncertain (and, to a landsman, it might seem an unnatural) light gave to the view a character of the wildest loneliness.

Gertrude shuddered, on reaching the deck, while she murmured an expression of strange delight.  Even Mrs Wyllys gazed upon the dark waves, that were heaving and setting in the horizon, around which was shed most of that radiance that seemed so supernatural, with a deep conviction that she was now entirely in the hands of the Being who had created the waters and the land.  But Wilder looked upon the scene as one fastens his gaze on a placid sky.  To him the view possessed neither novelty, nor dread, nor charm.  Not so, however, with his more youthful and slightly enthusiastic companion.  After the first sensations of awe had a little subsided, she exclaimed, in the fullest ardour of admiration,—­

“One such sight would repay a month of imprisonment in a ship!  You must find deep enjoyment in these scenes, Mr Wilder; you, who have them always at command.”

“Yes, yes; there is pleasure to be found in them, without doubt, I would that the wind had veer’d a point or two!  I like not that sky, nor yonder misty horizon, nor this breeze hanging so dead at east.”

“The vessel makes great progress,” returned Mrs Wyllys, calmly, observing that the young man spoke without consciousness, and fearing the effect of his words on the mind of her pupil.  “If we are going on our course, there is the appearance of a quick and prosperous passage.”