“Then, why not go to the place whence we came?”

“Will you consent to return?” demanded the youth, with the swiftness of thought.

“I would go to my father,” said Gertrude, with a rapidity so nearly resembling his own, that the ardent girl appeared to want breath to utter the little she said.

“And I am willing, Mr Wilder, to abandon the ship entirely,” calmly resumed the governess.  “I require no explanation of all your mysterious warnings; restore us to our friends in Newport, and no further questions shall ever be asked.”

“It might be done!” muttered our adventurer; “it might be done!—­A few busy hours would do it, with this wind.—­Mr Earing!”—­

The mate was instantly at his elbow.  Wilder pointed to the dim object to leeward; and, handing him the glass, desired that he would take another view.  Each looked, in his turn, long and closely.

“He shows no more sail!” said the Commander impatiently, when his own prolonged gaze was ended.

“Not a cloth, sir.  But what matters it, to such a craft, how much canvas is spread, or how the wind blows?”

“Earing, I think there is too much southing in this breeze; and there is more brewing in yonder streak of dusky clouds on our beam.  Let the ship fall off a couple of points, or more, and take the strain off the spars, by a pull upon the weather braces.”

The simple-minded mate heard the order with an astonishment he did not care to conceal.  There needed no explanation, to teach his experienced faculties that the effect would be to go over the same track they had just passed, and that it was, in substance abandoning the objects of the voyage.  He presumed to defer his compliance, in order to remonstrate.

“I hope there is no offence for an elderly seaman, like myself, Captain Wilder, in venturing an opinion on the weather,” he said.  “When the pocket of the owner is interested, my judgment approves of going about, for I have no taste for land that the wind blows on, instead of off.  But, by easing the ship with a reef or two, she would be jogging sea ward; and all we gain would be clear gain; because it is so much off the Hatteras.  Besides, who can say that to-morrow, or the next day, we sha’n’t have, a puff out of America, here at north-west?”

“A couple of points fall off, and a pull upon your weather braces,” said Wilder, with startling quickness.

It would have exceeded the peaceful and submissive temperament of the honest Earing, to have delayed any longer.  The orders were given to the inferiors; and, as a matter of course, they were obeyed—­though ill-suppressed and portentous sounds of discontent at the undetermined, and seemingly unreasonable changes in their officer’s mind might been heard issuing from the mouths of Nighthead, and other veterans of the crew.