A startling alarm had more than once been caused by the sudden breaking of storms in which thunderbolts had seemed to fall within a few cables’ lengths of the schooner. On these occasions the torrents of rain had been so heavy that the ship had appeared to be in the very midst of a whirlpool of vapour, and it was impossible to see a yard ahead.
The Pilgrim pitched and rolled frightfully. Fortunately Mrs. Weldon could bear the motion without much personal inconvenience, and consequently was able to devote her attention to her little boy, who was a miserable sufferer. Cousin Benedict was as undisturbed as the cockroaches he was investigating; he hardly noticed the increasing madness of either wind or wave, but went on with his studies as calmly as if he were in his own comfortable museum at San Francisco. Moreover, it was fortunate that the negroes did not suffer to any great degree from seasickness, and consequently were able to assist their captain in his arduous task. Dick was far too experienced a sailor himself to be inconvenienced by any oscillations of the vessel, however violent.
The Pilgrim still made good headway, and Dick, although he was aware that ultimately it would probably be necessary again to shorten sail, was anxious to postpone making any alteration before he was absolutely obliged. Surely, he reasoned with himself, the land could not now be far away; he had calculated his speed; he had kept a diligent reckoning on the chart; surely, the shore must be almost in sight. He would not trust his crew to keep watch; he was aware how easily their inexperienced eyes would be misled, and how they might mistake a distant cloud-bank for the land they coveted to see; he kept watch for himself; his own gaze was ever fixed upon the horizon; and in the eagerness of his expectation he would repeatedly mount to the cross-trees to get a wider range of vision.
But land was not to be seen.
Next day as Dick was standing at the bow, alternately considering the canvas which his ship carried and the aspect presented by the sky, Mrs. Weldon approached him without his noticing her. She caught some muttered expressions of bewilderment that fell from his lips, and asked him whether he could see anything.
He lowered the telescope which he had been holding in his hand, and answered—
“No, Mrs. Weldon, I cannot see anything; and it is this that perplexes me so sorely. I cannot understand why we have not already come in sight of land. It is nearly a month since we lost our poor dear captain. There has been no delay in our progress; no stoppage in our rate of speed. I cannot make it out.”
“How far were we from land when we lost the captain?”
“I am sure I am not far out in saying that we were scarcely more than 4,500 miles from the shores of America.”
“And at what rate have we been sailing?”
“Not much less than nine score knots a day.”
“How long, then, do you reckon, Dick, we ought to be in arriving at the coast?”
“Under six-and-twenty days,” replied Dick.
He paused before he spoke again, then added—
“But what mystifies me even more than our failing to sight the land is this: we have not come across a single vessel; and yet vessels without number are always traversing these seas.”
“But do you not think,” inquired Mrs. Weldon, “that you have made some error in your reckoning? Is your speed really what you have supposed?”
“Impossible, madam,” replied Dick, with an air of dignity, “impossible that I should have fallen into error. The log has been consulted, without fail, every half-hour. I am about to have it lowered now, and I will undertake to show you that we are at this present moment making ten miles an hour, which would give considerably over 200 miles a day.”
He then called out to Tom—
“Tom, lower the log!”
The old man was quite accustomed to the duty. The log was fastened to the line and thrown overboard. It ran out regularly for about five-and-twenty fathoms, when all at once the line slackened in Tom’s hand.
“It is broken!” cried Tom; “the cord is broken!”
“Broken?” exclaimed Dick: “good heavens! we have lost the log!”
It was too true. The log was gone.
Tom drew in the rope. Dick took it up and examined it. It had not broken at its point of union with the log; it had given way in the middle, at a place where the strands in some unaccountable way had worn strangely thin.
Dick’s agony of mind, in spite of his effort to be calm, was intensely great. A suspicion of foul play involuntarily occurred to him. He knew that the rope had been of first-rate make; he knew that it had been quite sound when used before; but he could prove nothing; he could only mourn over the loss which committed him to the sole remaining compass as his only guide.
That compass, too, although he knew it not, was misleading him entirely!
Mrs. Weldon sighed as she witnessed the grief which the loss manifestly caused poor Dick, but in purest sympathy she said nothing, and retired thoughtfully to her cabin.
It was no longer possible to reckon the rate of progress, but there was no doubt that the Pilgrim continued to maintain at least her previous speed.
Before another four-and-twenty hours had passed the barometer had fallen still lower, and the wind was threatening to rise to a velocity of sixty miles. Resolved to be on the safe side, Dick determined not only to strike the topgallant and the main-topmast, but to take in all the lower sails. Indeed, he began to be aware that no time was to be lost. The operation would not be done in a moment, and the storm was approaching. Dick made Tom take the helm; he ascended the shrouds with Bat, Austin, and Actaeon, making Hercules stay on
