all the shot fell to leeward of the
Chloe, he was no longer uneasy about that vessel, and he began to turn
his attention to other and more important concerns.

As we are now approaching a moment when it is necessary that the reader
should receive some tolerably distinct impression of the relative
positions of the two entire fleets, we shall close the present chapter,
here; reserving the duty of explanation for the commencement of a new
one.

CHAPTER XXII.

----"All were glad,
And laughed, and shouted, as she darted on,
And plunged amid the foam, and tossed it high,
Over the deck, as when a strong, curbed steed
Flings the froth from him in his eager race."

PERCIVAL

The long twilight of a high latitude had now ended, and the sun, though
concealed behind clouds, had risen. The additional light contributed to
lessen the gloomy look of the ocean, though the fury of the winds and
waves still lent to it a dark and menacing aspect. To windward there
were no signs of an abatement of the gale, while the heavens continued
to abstain from letting down their floods, on the raging waters beneath.
By this lime, the fleet was materially to the southward of Cape la
Hogue, though far to the westward, where the channel received the winds
and waves from the whole rake of the Atlantic, and the seas were setting
in, in the long, regular swells of the ocean, a little disturbed by the
influence of the tides. Ships as heavy as the two-deckers moved along
with groaning efforts, their bulk-heads and timbers "complaining," to
use the language of the sea, as the huge masses, loaded with their iron
artillery, rose and sunk on the coming and receding billows. But their
movements were stately and full of majesty; whereas, the cutter, sloop,
and even the frigates, seemed to be tossed like foam, very much at the
mercy of the elements. The Chloe was passing the admiral, on the
opposite tack, quite a mile to leeward, and yet, as she mounted to the
summit of a wave, her cut-water was often visible nearly to the keel.
These are the trials of a vessel's strength; for, were a ship always
water-borne equally on all her lines, there would not be the necessity
which now exists to make her the well-knit mass of wood and iron she is.

The progress of the two fleets was very much the same, both squadrons
struggling along through the billows, at the rate of about a marine
league in the hour. As no lofty sail wa