ado in glittering spray. Along this
frothy but comparatively motionless surface, then, the stranger came
booming with the steadiness and grandeur with which a cloud is seen
sailing in the hurricane. No sign of life was discovered about her. If
men looked out from their secret places, upon the straitened and
discomfited wreck of the Bristol trader, it was covertly, and as darkly
as the tempest before which they drove. Wilder held his breath, for the
moment the stranger was nighest, in the very excess of suspense, but, as
he saw no signal of recognition, no human form, nor any intention to
arrest, if possible, the furious career of the other, a smile gleamed
across his countenance, and his lips moved rapidly, as if he found
pleasure in being abandoned to his distress. The stranger drove by, like
a dark vision; and, ere another minute, her form was beginning to grow
less distinct, in the body of spray to leeward.

"She is going out of sight in the mist!" exclaimed Wilder, when he drew
his breath, after the fearful suspense of the few last moments.

"Ay, in mist or clouds," responded Knighthead, who now kept obstinately
at his elbow, watching with the most jealous distrust, the smallest
movement of his unknown commander.

"In the heavens, or in the sea, I care not, provided he be gone."

"Most seamen would rejoice to sec a strange sail, from the hull of a
vessel shaved to the deck like this."

"Men often court their destruction, from ignorance of their own
interests. Let him drive on, say I, and pray I! He goes four feet to
our one; and I ask no better favour than that this hurricane may blow
until the sun shall rise."

Knighthead started, and cast an oblique glance, which resembled
denunciation, at his companion. To his superstitious mind, there was
profanity in thus invoking the tempest, at a moment when the winds seemed
already to be pouring out their utmost wrath.

"This is a heavy squall, I will allow," he said, "and such a one as many
mariners pass whole lives without seeing; but he knows little of the sea
who thinks there is not more wind where this comes from."

"Let it blow!" cried the other, striking his hands together a little
wildly; "I pray for wind!"

All the doubts of Knighthead, as to the character of the young stranger
who had so unaccountably got possession of the office of Nicholas
Nichols, if any remained, were now removed. He walked forward among the
silent and thoughtful crew, with t