eckoning, tomorrow or next day, wind and
tide permitting. I'll take care of Sam's hull till then, and we'll lie
together till the angel blows that there trumpet; and then we'll go aloft
together, and, as soon as ever we have made our scrape to our betters,
we'll both speak a good word for you and the lady, a very pretty lady she
is, and a good-hearted, and the best plucked one I ever did see in any
distressed craft; now don't ye cry, miss, don't ye cry, your trouble is
pretty near over; _he_ said you was not a hundred miles from land. I
don't know how he knew that, he was always a better seaman than I be; but
say it he did, and that is enough, for he was a man as never told a lie,
nor wasted a word."

Welch could utter no more just then; for the glands of his throat were
swollen, and he spoke with considerable difficulty.

What could Hazel reply? The judgment is sometimes ashamed to contradict
the heart with cold reasons.

He only said, with a sigh, that he saw no signs of land, and believed
they had gone on a wrong course, and were in the heart of the Pacific.

Welch made no answer, but a look of good-natured contempt. The idea of
this parson contradicting Sam Cooper!

The sun broke, and revealed the illimitable ocean; themselves a tiny
speck on it.

Mr. Hazel whispered Miss Rolleston that Cooper _must_ be buried to-day.

At ten P.M. they passed through more sea-weed; but this time they had to
eat the sea spinach raw, and there was very little of it.

At noon the sea was green in places.

Welch told them this was a sign they were nearing land.

At four P.M. a bird, about the size and color of a woodpecker, settled on
the boat's mast.

Their glittering eyes fastened on it; and Welch said, "Come, there's a
supper for you as _you_ can eat it."

"No, poor thing!" said Helen Rolleston.

"You are right," said Hazel, with a certain effort of self-restraint.
"Let our sufferings make us gentle, not savage. That poor bird is lost
like us upon this ocean. It is a land-bird."

"How do you know?"

"Water-birds have webbed feet--to swim with." The bird, having rested,
flew to the northwest.

Helen, by one of those inspired impulses her sex have, altered the boat's
course directly, and followed the bird.

Half an hour before sunset, Helen Rolleston, whose vision was very keen,
said she saw something at the verge of the horizon, like a hair standing
upright.

Hazel looked, but could not see anything.

In ten