and he often climbed as far as the spars to
see better. But no sign yet of the American coast.

This astonished him, and Mrs. Weldon, by some words which escaped him,
understood that astonishment.

It was the 9th of March. The novice kept at the prow, sometimes
observing the sea and the sky, sometimes looking at the "Pilgrim's"
masting, which began to strain under the force of the wind.

"You see nothing yet, Dick?" she asked him, at a moment when he had
just left the long lookout.

"Nothing, Mrs. Weldon, nothing," replied the novice; and meanwhile, the
horizon seems to clear a little under this violent wind, which is going
to blow still harder."

"And, according to you, Dick, the American coast ought not to be
distant now."

"It cannot be, Mrs. Weldon, and if anything astonishes me, it is not
having made it yet."

"Meanwhile," continued Mrs. Weldon, "the ship has always followed the
right course."

"Always, since the wind settled in the northwest," replied Dick Sand;
"that is to say, since the day when we lost our unfortunate captain and
his crew. That was the 10th of February. We are now on the 9th of
March. There have been then, twenty-seven since that."

"But at that period what distance were we from the coast?" asked Mrs.
Weldon.

"About four thousand five hundred miles, Mrs. Weldon. If there are
things about which I have more than a doubt, I can at least guarantee
this figure within about twenty miles."

"And what has been the ship's speed?"

"On an average, a hundred and eighty miles a day since the wind
freshened," replied the novice. "So, I am surprised at not being in
sight of land. And, what is still more extraordinary, is that we do not
meet even a single one of those vessels which generally frequent these
parts!"

"Could you not be deceived, Dick," returned Mrs. Weldon, "in estimating
the 'Pilgrim's' speed?"

"No, Mrs. Weldon. On that point I could not be mistaken. The log has
been thrown every half hour, and I have taken its indications very
accurately. Wait, I am going to have it thrown anew, and you will see
that we are sailing at this moment at the rate of ten miles an hour,
which would give us more than two hundred miles a day."

Dick Sand called Tom, and gave him the order to throw the log, an
operation to which the old black was now quite accustomed.

The log, firmly fastened to the end of the line, was brought and sent
out.

Twenty-five fathoms were hardly unrolled, when the