s began to rise from the sea; they looked like
dark trees around; but the stars were clear up above. It was impossible
not to feel as if land was there, yet, when my lead was cast, the deep
only laughed at its little reach downward.

In such thick weather it will never do to ferret out the channel to
Cowes, even if we are near it. The night must be passed at sea, and
better begin to do that now than go in too near the cliffs in darkness;
and so we prepared to lie-to. Lowering the main-sail I tried the yawl
first under mizen and jib; but the rolling in every trough of the waves
was most uncomfortable, and besides she drifted north, which might end by
going ashore.

Then I took in the jib and set the storm-mizen, and hung out the anchor
with twenty fathoms of chain--not, of course, to reach the bottom, but to
keep the boat's head easier in the sea, and this did perfectly well. The
motion was a long, regular rise and fall, and the drift was to the east;
quite out of our proper course, indeed, but I couldn't help that.

The motion of a vessel lying-to is far more easy than what would be
supposed possible. When you are rocked in a boat making progress by
sails or steam, the pressure of each wave is more or less of a blow, for
the ship is going forward, and it resists the mass of water often with
violence. At anchor, too, though in a modified degree, the action is the
same, and in a swell without wind the oscillations are jerky and short,
for they are not softened by the sails then merely hanging. But if a
boat is staunch and strong, and the deck is tight, and she has plenty of
keel, so as not to swerve round right and left, but to preserve a general
average direction towards the wind, then she may lie-to in a very stiff
gale and high sea with a wonderfully gentle motion. Her head then is
slightly off the sea, and there is but little rolling. The sails are so
set that they ease every lateral heave. She forges forward just a little
between the wave tops, and when the crest of one lifts her up she
courteously yields for the time, but will soon again recover lost ground
by this well-managed "compromise."

When we saw how admirably the Rob Roy behaved in lying-to, and that
scarcely a wave broke over her deck, we felt that if it came to the worst
we might thus pass a whole week in her safely.

Now I must make my bed. Undoubtedly this was a risky deed about to be
done; but pray what else could we do?

"You ought no