“Ah! well do I know you,” muttered Wilder, as the first puff of this unwelcome wind struck his sails, and forced the little boat to bend to its power in passing; “well do I know you, with your fresh-water flavour and your smell of the land!  Would to God you had blown your fill upon the lakes, without coming down to drive many a weary seaman back upon his wake, and to eke out a voyage, already too long, by your bitter colds and steady obstinacy!”

“Do you speak?” said Gertrude, half appearing from beneath her canopy, and then shrinking back, shivering, into its cover again, as she felt the influence in the change of air.

“Sleep, Lady, sleep,” he answered, as though he liked not, at such a moment, to be disturbed by even her soft and silvery voice.

“Is there new danger?” asked the maiden, stepping lightly from the mattress, as if she would not disturb the repose of her governess.  “You need not fear to tell me the worst:  I am a soldier’s child!”

He pointed to the signs so well comprehended by himself, but continued silent.

“I feel that the wind is colder than it was,” she said, “but I see no other change.”

“And do you know whither the boat is going?”

“To the land, I think.  You assured us of that, and I do not believe you would willingly deceive.”

“You do me justice; and, as a proof of it, I will now tell you that you are mistaken.  I know that to your eyes all points of the compass, on this void, must seem the same; but I cannot thus easily deceive myself.”

“And we are not sailing for our homes?”

“So far from it, that, should this course continue we must cross the whole Atlantic before your eyes could again see land.”

Gertrude made no reply, but retired, in sorrow, to the side of her governess.  In the mean time, Wilder again left to himself, began to consult his compass and the direction of the wind.  Perceiving that he might approach nearer to the continent of America by changing the position of the boat, he wore round, and brought its head as nigh up to the south-west as the wind would permit.

But there was little hope in this trifling change.  At each minute, the power of the breeze was increasing until it soon freshened to a degree that compelled him to furl his after-sail.  The slumbering ocean was not long in awakening; and, by the time the launch was snug under a close-reefed fore-sail, the boat was rising on dark and ever-growing waves, or sinking into the momentary calm of deep furrows, whence it rose again, to feel the rapidly increasing power of the blasts.  The dashing of the waters, and the rushing of the wind, which now began to sweep heavily across the blue waste, quickly drew the females to the side of our adventurer.  To their hurried and anxious questions he made considerate but brief replies, like a man who felt that the time was far better suited to action than to words.