lone, Mrs Wyllys and
her pupil did as desired; and, in a few minutes, if not asleep, no one
could have told that any other than our adventurer had possession of the
solitary launch.

The middle hour of the night went by, without any material change in the
prospects of those whose fate so much depended on the precarious influence
of the weather. The wind had freshened to a smart breeze; and, by the
calculations of Wilder, he had already moved across many leagues of ocean,
directly in a line for the eastern end of that long and narrow isle that
separates the waters which wash the shores of Connecticut from those of
the open sea. The minutes flew swiftly by; for the time was propitious and
the thoughts of the young seaman were busy with the recollections of a
short but adventurous life. At moments he leaned forward, as if he would
catch the gentle respiration of one who slept beneath the dark and rude
canopy, and as though he might distinguish the soft breathings of her
slumbers from those of her companions. Then would his form fall back into
its seat, and his lip curl, or even move, as he gave inward utterance to
the wayward fancies of his imagination. But at no time, not even in the
midst of his greatest abandonment to reverie and thought, did he forget
the constant, and nearly instinctive, duties of his station. A rapid
glance at the heavens, an oblique look at the compass, and an occasional,
but more protracted, examination of the pale face of the melancholy moon,
were the usual directions taken by his practised eyes. The latter was
still in the zenith; and his brow began again to contract, as he saw that
she was shining through an atmosphere without a haze. He would have liked
better to have seen even those portentous and watery circles by which she
is so often environed and which are thought to foretel the tempest, than
the hard and dry medium through which her beams fell so clear upon the
face of the waters. The humidity with which the breeze had commenced was
also gone; and, in its place, the quick, sensitive organs of the seaman
detected the often grateful, though at that moment unwelcome, taint of the
land. All these were signs that the airs from the Continent were about to
prevail, and (as he dreaded, from certain wild-looking, long, narrow
clouds, that were gathering over the western horizon) to prevail with a
power conformable to the turbulent season of the year.

If any doubt had existed in the mind of Wilder