.

Once more the conviction possessed itself of his mind that something was
to happen to Allan or to himself before they left the wreck.

Minute by minute the light strengthened in the eastern sky; and the
shadowy places on the deck of the timber-ship revealed their barren
emptiness under the eye of day. As the breeze rose again, the sea began
to murmur wakefully in the morning light. Even the cold bubbling of the
broken water changed its cheerless note, and softened on the ear as the
mellowing flood of daylight poured warm over it from the rising sun.
Midwinter paused near the forward part of the ship, and recalled his
wandering attention to the passing time. The cheering influences of the
hour were round him, look where he might. The happy morning smile of the
summer sky, so brightly merciful to the old and weary earth, lavished
its all-embracing beauty even on the wreck. The dew that lay glittering
on the inland fields lay glittering on the deck, and the worn and rusted
rigging was gemmed as brightly as the fresh green leaves on shore.
Insensibly, as he looked round, Midwinter's thoughts reverted to the
comrade who had shared with him the adventure of the night. He returned
to the after-part of the ship, spoke to Allan as he advanced. Receiving
no answer, he approached the recumbent figure and looked closer at it.
Left to his own resources, Allan had let the fatigues of the night take
their own way with him. His head had sunk back; his hat had fallen off;
he lay stretched at full length on the deck of the timber-ship, deeply
and peacefully asleep.

Midwinter resumed his walk; his mind lost in doubt; his own past
thoughts seeming suddenly to have grown strange to him. How darkly his
forebodings had distrusted the coming time, and how harmlessly that time
had come! The sun was mounting in the heavens, the hour of release was
drawing nearer and nearer, and of the two Armadales imprisoned in the
fatal ship, one was sleeping away the weary time, and the other was
quietly watching the growth of the new day.

The sun climbed higher; the hour wore on. With the latent distrust of
the wreck which still clung to him, Midwinter looked inquiringly on
either shore for signs of awakening human life. The land was still
lonely. The smoke wreaths that were soon to rise from cottage chimneys
had not risen yet.

After a moment's thought he went back again to the after-part of the
vessel, to see if there might be a fisherman's boat