nk the
chance of being seen by some passing sail equal to the probability that
those who adventure in the pinnace will ever reach the land."

"Then let us remain," said Gertrude, the blood, for the first time since
her re-appearance on deck, rushing into her colourless cheeks, until they
appeared charged to fulness. "I like not the wretches who would be our
companions in that boat."

"Away, away!" impatiently shouted Nighthead "Each minute of light is a
week of life to us all, and every moment of calm, a year. Away, away, or
we leave you!"

Mrs Wyllys answered not, but she stood the image of doubt and painful
indecision. Then the plash of oars was heard in the water, and at the next
moment the pinnace was seen gliding over the element, impelled by the
strong arms of six powerful rowers.

"Stay!" shrieked the governess, no longer undetermined; "receive my child,
though you abandon me!"

A wave of the hand, and an indistinct rumbling in the coarse tones of the
mate, were the only answers given to her appeal. A long, deep, and
breathing silence followed among the deserted. The grim countenances of
the seamen in the pinnace soon became confused and indistinct; and then
the boat itself began to lessen on the eye, until it seemed no more than a
dark and distant speck, rising and falling with the flow and reflux of the
blue waters. During all this time, not even a whispered word was spoken.
Each of the party gazed, until sight grew dim, at the receding object; and
it was only when his organs refused to convey the tiny image to his brain,
that Wilder himself shook off the impression of the sort of trance into
which he had fallen. His look became bent on his companions, and he
pressed his hand upon his forehead, as though his brain were bewildered by
the deep responsibility he had assumed in advising them to remain. But the
sickening apprehension quickly passed away, leaving in its place a firmer
mind, and a resolution too often tried in scenes of doubtful issue, to be
long or easily shaken from its calmness and self-possession.

"They are gone!" he exclaimed, breathing long and heavily, like one whose
respiration had been unnaturally suspended.

"They are gone!" echoed the governess, turning an eye, that was
contracting with the intensity or her care, on the marble-like and
motionless form of her pupil "There is no longer any hope."

The look that Wilder bestowed, on the same silent out lovely statue, was
scarcely less