ays observed among sailors.

"A fine morning, sir," said Roswell Gardiner, "and a good-bye to America.
We've a long road to travel, Mr. Green, but we've a fast boat to do it in.
Here is an offing ready made to our hands. Nothing in sight to the
westward; not so much as a coaster, even! It's too early for the
outward-bound craft of the last ebb, and too late for those that sailed
the tide before. I never saw this bight of the coast clearer of canvass."

"Ay, ay, sir; it does seem empty, like. Here's a chap, however, to
leeward, who appears inclined to try his rate of sailing with us. Here he
is, sir, a very little abaft the beam; and, as near as I can make him out,
he's a fore-tawsail schooner, of about our own dimensions; if you'll just
look at him through this glass, Captain Gardner, you'll see he has not
only our rig, but our canvass set."

"You are right enough, Mr. Green," returned Roswell, after getting, his
look. "He is a schooner of about our tonnage, and under precisely our
canvass. How long has the fellow bore as he does now?"

"He came out from under Blok Island a few hours since, and we made him by
moonlight. The question with me is, where did that chap come from? A
Stunnin'ton man would have naturally passed to windward of Blok Island;
and a Newport or Providence fellow would not have fetched so far to
windward without making a stretch or two on purpose. That schooner has
bothered me ever since it was daylight; for I can't place him where he is
by any traverse my poor Parnin' can work!"

"She does seem to be out of her way. Possibly it is a schooner beating up
for the Hook, and finding herself too close in, she is standing to the
southward to get an offing again."

"Not she, sir. She came out from behind Blok, and a craft of her size that
wanted to go to the westward, and which found itself so close in, would
have taken the first of the flood and gone through the Race like a shot.
No, no, Captain Gar'ner; this fellow is bound south as well as ourselves,
and it is quite onaccountable how he should be just where he is--so far to
windward, or so far to leeward, as a body might say. A south-south-east
course, from any place behind Point Judith, would have taken him off near
No Man's Land, and here he is almost in a line with Blok Island!"

"Perhaps he is out of New London, or some of the ports on the main, and
being bound to the West Indies he has been a little careless about
weathering the island. It's no