It is not our intention to accompany the Rancocus, day by day, in her route.  She touched at Rio, and sailed again at the end of eight and forty hours.  The passage round the Horn was favourable, and having got well to the westward, away the ship went for her port.  One of the cows got down, and died before it could be relieved, in a gale off the cape; but no other accident worth mentioning occurred.  A child died with convulsions, in consequence of teething, a few days later; but this did not diminish the number on board, as three were born the same week.  The ship had now been at sea one hundred and sixty days, counting the time passed at Rio, and a general impatience to arrive pervaded the vessel.  If the truth must be said, some of the emigrants began to doubt the governor’s ability to find his islands again, though none doubted of their existence.  The Kannakas, however, declared that they began to smell home, and it is odd enough, that this declaration, coming as it did from ignorant men who made it merely on a fanciful suggestion, obtained more credit with most of the emigrants, than all the governor’s instruments and observations.

One day, a little before noon it was, Mark appeared on deck with his quadrant, and as he cleaned the glasses of the instrument, he announced his conviction that the ship would shortly make the group of the crater.  A current had set him further north than he intended to go, but having hauled up to south-west, he waited only for noon to ascertain his latitude, to be certain of his position.  As the governor maintained a proper distance from his people, and was not in the habit of making-unnecessary communications to them, his present frankness told for so much the more, and it produced a very general excitement in the ship.  All eyes were on the look-out for land, greatly increasing the chances of its being shortly seen.  The observation came at noon, as is customary, and the governor found he was about thirty miles to the northward of the group of islands he was seeking.  By his calculation, he was still to the eastward of it, and he hauled up, hoping to fall in with the land well to windward.  After standing on three hours in the right direction, the look-outs from the cross-trees declared no land was visible ahead.  For one moment the dreadful apprehension of the group’s having sunk under another convulsion of nature crossed Mark’s mind, but he entertained that notion for a minute only.  Then came the cry of “sail ho!” to cheer everybody, and to give them something else to think of.

This was the first vessel the Rancocus had seen since she left Rio.  It was to windward, and appeared to be standing down before the wind.  In an hour’s time the two vessels were near enough to each other to enable the glass to distinguish objects; and the quarter-deck, on board the Rancocus, were all engaged in looking at the stranger.

“’Tis the Mermaid,” said Mark to Betts, “and it’s all right.  Though what that craft can be doing here to windward of the islands is more than I can imagine!”