In this manner the last lingering minutes of the night went by, loaded with a care that each moment rendered heavier, and which each successive freshening of the breeze had a tendency to render doubly anxious.  The day came, only to bestow more distinctness on the cheerless prospect.  The waves were looking green and angrily, while, here and there, large crests of foam were beginning to break on their summits—­the certain evidence that a conflict betwixt the elements was at hand.  Then came the sun over the ragged margin of the eastern horizon, climbing slowly into the blue arch above, which lay clear, chilling, distinct, and entirely without a cloud.

Wilder noted all these changes of the hour with a closeness that proved how critical he deemed their case.  He seemed rather to consult the signs of the heavens than to regard the tossings and rushings of the water, which dashed against the side of his little vessel in a mariner that, to the eyes of his companions, often appeared to threaten their total destruction.  To the latter he was too much accustomed, to anticipate the true moment of alarm, though to less instructed senses it might already seem so dangerous.  It was to him as is the thunder, when compared to the lightning, in the mind of the philosopher; or rather he knew, that, if harm might come from the one on which he floated, its ability to injure must first be called into action by the power of the sister element.

“What think you of our case now?” asked Mrs Wyllys, keeping her look closely fastened on his countenance, as if she would rather trust its expression than even to his words for the answer.

“So long as the wind continues thus, we may yet hope to keep within the route of ships to and from the great northern ports; but, if it freshen to a gale, and the sea begin to break with violence.  I doubt the ability of this boat to lie-to.”

“Then our resource must be in endeavouring to run before the gale.”

“Then must we scud.”

“What would be our direction, in such an event?” demanded Gertrude, to whose mind, in the agitation of the ocean and the naked view on every hand, all idea of places and distances was lost, in the most inextricable confusion.

“In such an event,” returned our adventurer, regarding her with a look in which commiseration and indefinite concern were so singularly mingled, that her own mild gaze was changed into a timid and furtive glance, “in such an event, we should be leaving that land it is so important to reach.”

“What ’em ’ere?” cried Cassandra, whose large dark eyes were rolling on every side of her, with a curiosity that no care or sense of danger could extinguish; “’em berry big fish on a water?”

“It is a boat!” cried Wilder, springing upon a thwart, to catch a glimpse of a dark object that was driving on the glittering crest of a wave, within a hundred feet of the spot where the launch itself was struggling through the brine.  “What ho!—­boat, ahoy!—­holloa there!—­boat, ahoy!”