lf, however, a short distance in the offing, as its
waters diffused themselves on the breast of the ocean; and it was this
diffusion of the element that produced the eddy which had proved so nearly
fatal.

In ten minutes after striking the tide, the schooner opened the passage
fairly, and was kept away to enter it. Notwithstanding it blew so heavily,
the rate of sailing, by the land, did not exceed five knots. This was
owing to the great strength of the tide, which sometimes rises and falls
thirty feet, in high latitudes and narrow waters. Stimson now showed he
was a man to be relied on. Conning the craft intelligently, he took her in
behind the island on which the cape stands, luffed her up into a tiny
cove, and made a cast of the lead. There were fifty fathoms of water, with
a bottom of mud. With the certainty that there was enough of the element
to keep him clear of the ground at low water, and that his anchors would
hold, Roswell made a flying moor, and veered out enough cable to render
his vessel secure.

Here, then, was the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond, that craft which the reader
had seen lying at Deacon Pratt's wharf, only three short months before,
safely anchored in a nook of the rocks behind Cape Horn. No navigator but
a sealer would have dreamed of carrying his vessel into such a place, but
it is a part of their calling to poke about in channels and passages where
no one else has ever been. It was in this way that Stimson had learned to
know where to find his present anchorage. The berth of the schooner was
perfectly snug, and entirely land-locked. The tremendous swell that was
rolling in on the outside, caused the waters to rise and fall a little
within the passage, but there was no strain upon the cables in
consequence. Neither did the rapid tides affect the craft, which lay in an
eddy that merely kept her steady. The gale came howling over the Hermits,
but was so much broken by the rocks as to do little more than whistle
through the cordage and spars aloft.

Three days, and as many nights, did the gale from the south-west continue.
The fourth day there was a change, the wind coming from the eastward.
Roswell would now have gone out, had it not been for the apprehension of
falling in with Daggett again. Having at length gotten rid of that
pertinacious companion, it would have been an act of great weakness to
throw himself blindly in his way once more. It was possible that Daggett
might not suppose he had been