hat he could not move
from the spot where he was until he had satisfied himself as to the
vessel's course.

He sat down not far from the edge of the precipice, and, leaning
forward with his hands supporting his chin, he strained his eyes over
the intervening distance, as he tried to make out in which way the
vessel was going. It seemed fully ten miles away, and her hull was not
visible. It was only the white of her sails that he saw; and as the
sunlight played on these from time to time, or fell off from the angle
of reflection, the vessel was alternately more or less visible, and
thus seemed by turns to draw nearer and depart farther from his sight.

Thus for a long time he sat, alternately hoping and desponding, at
every play of those sails in the sunlight. The calm of the water
showed him that, even if the vessel were coming up, he could not expect
any very rapid progress. There was now no wind, and the surface of the
water was perfectly unruffled. Besides, he knew that the tide was
falling rapidly. How, then, could he expect that the vessel could come
any nearer, even if she were trying to? Thoughts like these at last
made him only anxious to keep the vessel in sight. If her destination
lay up the bay, she would probably anchor; if it lay down the bay, she
would drift with the tide. He thought, then, that if she only would
remain in sight, it would be a sufficient proof of her course.

Thus he sat, watching and waiting, with all his soul intent upon those
flashing sails, and all his thoughts taken up with the question as to
the course of that solitary bark. It seemed a long time to him, in his
suspense; but suspense always makes time seem long. At last, however,
even though he hoped so persistently for the best, his hope began to
die within him. Fainter and fainter grew those sails; at intervals
rarer and rarer did their flash come to his eyes, until at length the
sight of them was lost altogether, and nothing met his eyes but the
gloomy gray of the fog cloud on the far horizon.

Even after he had lost hope, and become convinced that she was gone,
Tom sat there for a long time, in a fixed attitude, looking at that one
spot. He would have sat there longer, but suddenly there came to his
ears a peculiar sound, which made him start to his feet in a moment,
and filled him with a new excitement.

He listened.

The sound came again.

A flush of joy spread over his face, his heart beat faster and faster