how little was to be hoped for from this vessel.  In the first place, her distance was so great as to render it uncertain even which way she was steering.  Then, there was the probability that she would pass at so great a distance as to render it impossible to perceive an object as low as the wreck, and the additional chance of her passing in the night.  Under all the circumstances, therefore, Mulford felt convinced that there was very little probability of their receiving any succour from the strange sail; and he fully appreciated Jack Tier’s motive in forbearing to give the usual call of “Sail, ho!” when he made this discovery.  Still, he could not deny himself the pleasure of communicating to Rose the cheering fact that a vessel was actually in sight.  She could not reason on the circumstances as he had done, and might at least pass several hours of comparative happiness by believing that there was some visible chance of delivery.

The females received the intelligence with very different degrees of hope.  Rose was delighted.  To her their rescue appeared an event so very probable now, that Harry Mulford almost regretted he had given rise to an expectation which he himself feared was to be disappointed.  The feelings of Mrs. Budd were more suppressed.  The wreck and her present situation were so completely at variance with all her former notions of the sea and its incidents, that she was almost dumb-founded, and feared either to speak or to think.  Biddy differed from either of her mistresses—­the young or the old; she appeared to have lost all hope, and her physical energy was fast giving way under her profound moral debility.

From the return of light that day, Mulford had thought, if it were to prove that Providence had withdrawn its protecting hand from them, Biddy, who to all appearance ought to be the longest liver among the females at least, would be the first to sink under her sufferings.  Such is the influence of moral causes on the mere animal.

Rose saw the night shut in around them, amid the solemn solitude of the ocean, with a mingled sensation of awe and hope.  She had prayed devoutly, and often, in the course of the preceding day, and her devotions had contributed to calm her spirits.  Once or twice, while kneeling with her head bowed to the keel, she had raised her eyes toward Harry with a look of entreaty, as if she would implore him to humble his proud spirit and place himself at her side, and ask that succour from God which was so much needed, and which indeed it began most seriously to appear that God alone could yield.  The young mate did not comply, for his pride of profession and of manhood offered themselves as stumbling-blocks to prevent submission to his secret wishes.  Though he rarely prayed, Harry Mulford was far from being an unbeliever, or one altogether regardless of his duties and obligations to his Divine Creator.  On the contrary, his heart was more disposed to resort to such means of self-abasement