mate was instantly at his elbow. Wilder pointed to the dim object to
leeward; and, handing him the glass, desired that he would take another
view. Each looked, in his turn, long and closely.

"He shows no more sail!" said the Commander impatiently, when his own
prolonged gaze was ended.

"Not a cloth, sir. But what matters it, to such a craft, how much canvas
is spread, or how the wind blows?"

"Earing, I think there is too much southing in this breeze; and there is
more brewing in yonder streak of dusky clouds on our beam. Let the ship
fall off a couple of points, or more, and take the strain off the spars,
by a pull upon the weather braces."

The simple-minded mate heard the order with an astonishment he did not
care to conceal. There needed no explanation, to teach his experienced
faculties that the effect would be to go over the same track they had just
passed, and that it was, in substance abandoning the objects of the
voyage. He presumed to defer his compliance, in order to remonstrate.

"I hope there is no offence for an elderly seaman, like myself, Captain
Wilder, in venturing an opinion on the weather," he said. "When the pocket
of the owner is interested, my judgment approves of going about, for I
have no taste for land that the wind blows on, instead of off. But, by
easing the ship with a reef or two, she would be jogging sea ward; and all
we gain would be clear gain; because it is so much off the Hatteras.
Besides, who can say that to-morrow, or the next day, we sha'n't have, a
puff out of America, here at north-west?"

"A couple of points fall off, and a pull upon your weather braces," said
Wilder, with startling quickness.

It would have exceeded the peaceful and submissive temperament of the
honest Earing, to have delayed any longer. The orders were given to the
inferiors; and, as a matter of course, they were obeyed--though
ill-suppressed and portentous sounds of discontent at the undetermined,
and seemingly unreasonable changes in their officer's mind might been
heard issuing from the mouths of Nighthead, and other veterans of the
crew.

But to all these symptoms of disaffection Wilder remained, as before,
utterly indifferent. If he heard them at all, he either disdained to yield
them any notice, or, guided by a temporizing policy, he chose to appear
unconscious of their import. In the mean time, the vessel, like a bird
whose wing had wearied with struggling against the tempest, and which
incli