ral days the ship had been contending with the unvarying winds of
those regions. Instead of struggling, however, like a cumbered trader, to
gain some given port, the "Rover" suddenly altered her course, and glided
through one of the many passages that offered, with the ease of a bird
that is settling swiftly to its nest. A hundred different sails were seen
steering among the islands, but all were avoided alike; the policy of the
freebooters teaching them the necessity of moderation, in a sea so crowded
with vessels of war. After the vessel had shot through one of the straits
which divide the chain of the Antilles, she issued in safety on the more
open sea which separates them from the Spanish Main. The moment the
passage was effected, and a broad and clear horizon was seen stretching on
every side of them, a manifest alteration occurred in the mien of every
individual of the crew. The brow of the Rover himself lost its
contraction; and the look of care, which had wrapped the whole man in a
mantle of reserve, disappeared, leaving him the reckless wayward being we
have more than once described. Even the men, whose vigilance had needed no
quickening in running the gauntlet of the cruisers which were known to
swarm in the narrower seas, appeared to breathe a freer air, and sounds of
merriment and thoughtless gaiety were once more heard in a place over
which the gloom of distrust had been so long and so heavily cast.

On the other hand, the governess saw new ground for uneasiness in the
course the vessel was taking. While the islands were in view, she had
hoped, and surely not without reason, that their captor only awaited a
suitable occasion to place them in safety within the influence of the laws
of some of the colonial governments. Her own observation told her there
was so much of what was once good, if not noble, mingled with the
lawlessness of the two principal individuals in the vessel, that she saw
nothing that was visionary in such an expectation. Even the tales of the
time, which recounted the desperate acts of the freebooter, with not a
little of wild and fanciful exaggeration, did not forget to include
numberless striking instances of marked, and even chivalrous generosity.
In short, he bore the character of one who, while he declared himself the
enemy of all, knew how to distinguish between the weak and the strong, and
who often found as much gratification in repairing the wrongs of the
former, as in humbling the p