"I would I knew!" he answered quickly, casting a keen but hurried glance around the whole horizon. "It is not improbable that they should reach the sh.o.r.e. Four-and-twenty hours of calm will a.s.sure it."

"And if otherwise?"

"A blow at north-west, or from any quarter off the land, will prove their ruin."

"But the ship?"

"If deserted, she must sink."

"Then will I speak in your favour to these hearts of flint! I know not why I feel such interest in your welfare, inexplicable young man, but much would I suffer rather than believe that you incurred this peril."

"Stop, dearest Madam," said Wilder, respectfully arresting her movement with his hand. "I cannot leave the vessel."

"We know not yet. The most stubborn natures may be subdued; even ignorance can be made to open its ears at the voice of entreaty. I may prevail."

"There is one temper to be quelled--one reason to convince--one prejudice to conquer, over which you have no power."

"Whose is that?"

"My own."

"What mean you, sir? Surely you are not weak enough to suffer resentment against such beings to goad you to an act of madness?"

"Do I seem mad?" demanded Wilder. "The feeling by which I am governed may be false, but, such as it is, it is grafted on my habits, my opinions; I will say, my principles. Honour forbids me to quit a ship that I command, while a plank of her is afloat."

"Of what use can a single arm prove at such a crisis?".

"None," he answered, with a melancholy smile. "I must die, in order that others, who may be serviceable hereafter, should do their duty."

Both Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude stood regarding his kindling eye, but otherwise placid countenance, with looks whose concern amounted to horror.

The former read, in the very composure of his mien, the unalterable character of his resolution; and the latter shuddering as the prospect of the cruel fate which awaited him crowded on her mind, felt a glow about her own youthful heart that almost tempted her to believe his self-devotion commendable. But the governess saw new reasons for apprehension in the determination of Wilder. If she had hitherto felt reluctance to trust herself and her ward with a band such as that which now possessed the sole authority, it was more than doubly increased by the rude and noisy summons she received to hasten and take her place among them.

"Would to Heaven I knew in what manner to choose!" she exclaimed. "Speak to us, young man, as you would counsel mother and sister."

"Were I so fortunate as to possess relatives so near and dear," returned the other, with emphasis "nothing should separate us at a time like this."

"Is there hope for those who remain on the wreck?"

"But little."

"And in the boat?"

It was near a minute before Wilder made any answer. He again turned his look around the bright and broad horizon, and he appeared to study the heavens, in the direction of the distant Continent, with infinite care. No omen that could indicate the probable character of the weather escaped his vigilance while his countenance reflected all the various emotions by which he was governed, as he gazed.

"As I am a man, Madam," he answered with fervour "and one who is bound not only to counsel but to protect your s.e.x, I distrust the time. I think the chance of being seen by some pa.s.sing 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 coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sumed in advising them to remain. But the sickening apprehension quickly pa.s.sed 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 expressive than "he gaze of her who had nurtured the infancy of the Southern Heiress, in innocence and love. His brow grew thoughtful, and his lips became compressed, while all the resources of his fertile imagination and long experience gathered in his mind, in engrossing intense reflection.

"Is there hope?" demanded the governess, who was watching the change of his working countenance, with an attention that never swerved.

The gloom pa.s.sed away from his swarthy features, and the smile that lighted them was like the radiance of the sun, as it breaks through the blackest vapours of the drifting gust.

"There is!" he said with firmness; "our case is far from desperate."

"Then, may He who rules the ocean and the land receive the praise!" cried the grateful governess giving vent to her long-suppressed agony in a flood of tears.

Gertrude cast herself upon the neck of Mrs Wyllys, and for a minute their unrestrained emotions were mingled.

"And now, my dearest Madam," said Gertrude, leaving the arms of her governess, "let us trust to the skill of Mr Wilder; he has foreseen and foretold this danger; equally well may he predict our safety."

"Foreseen and foretold!" returned the other, in a manner to show that her faith in the professional prescience of the stranger was not altogether so unbounded as that of her more youthful and ardent companion. "No mortal could have foreseen this awful calamity; and least of all, foreseeing it, would he have sought to incur its danger! Mr Wilder, I will not annoy you with requests for explanations that might now be useless, but you will not refuse to communicate your grounds of hope."

Wilder hastened to relieve a curiosity that he well knew must be as painful as it was natural. The mutineers had left the largest, and much the safest, of the two boats belonging to the wreck, from a desire to improve the calm, well knowing that hours of severe labour would be necessary to launch it, from the place it occupied between the stumps of the two princ.i.p.al masts, into the ocean. This operation, which might have been executed in a few minutes with the ordinary purchases of the ship, would have required all their strength united, and that, too, to be exercised with a discretion and care that would have consumed too many of those moments which they rightly deemed to be so precious at that wild and unstable season of the year. Into this little ark Wilder proposed to convey such articles of comfort and necessity as he might hastily collect from the abandoned vessel; and then, entering it with his companions, to await the critical instant when the wreck should sink from beneath them.

"Call you this hope?" exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, when his short explanation was ended, her cheek again blanching with disappointment. "I have heard that the gulf, which foundering vessels leave, swallows all lesser objects that are floating nigh!"

"It sometimes happens. For worlds I would not deceive you; and I now say that I think our chance for escape equal to that of being ingulfed with the vessel."

"This is terrible!" murmured the governess, "but the will of Heaven be done! Cannot ingenuity supply the place of strength, and the boat be cast from the decks before the fatal moment arrives?"

Wilder shook his head in an unequivocal negative.

"We are not so weak as you may think us," said Gertrude. "Give a direction to our efforts, and let us see what may yet be done. Here is Ca.s.sandra,"

she added--turning to the black girl already introduced to the reader, who stood behind her young and ardent mistress, with the mantle and shawls of the latter thrown over her arm, as if about to attend her on an excursion for the morning--"here is Ca.s.sandra who alone has nearly the strength of a man."

"Had she the strength of twenty, I should despair of launching the boat without the aid of machinery But we lose time in words; I will go below, in order to judge of the probable duration of our doubt and then to our preparations. Even you, fair and fragile as you seem, lovely being, may aid in the latter."

He then pointed out such lighter objects as would be necessary to their comfort, should they be so fortunate as to get clear of the wreck, and advised their being put into the boat without delay. While the three females were thus usefully employed, he descended into the hold of the ship, in order to note the increase of the water, and make his calculations on the time that would elapse before the sinking fabric must entirely disappear. The fact proved their case to be more alarming than even Wilder had been led to expect. Stripped of her masts, the vessel had laboured so heavily as to open many of her seams; and, as the upper works began to settle beneath the level of the ocean, the influx of the element was increasing with frightful rapidity. As the young manner gazed about him with an understanding eye, he cursed, in the bitterness of his heart, the ignorance and superst.i.tion that had caused the desertion of the remainder of the crew. There existed, in reality, no evil that exertion and skill could not have remedied; but, deprived of all aid, he at once saw the folly of even attempting to procrastinate a catastrophe that was now unavoidable. Returning with a heavy heart to the deck, he immediately set about those dispositions which were necessary to afford them the smallest chance of escape.

While his companions deadened the sense of apprehension by their light but equally necessary employment Wilder stepped the two masts of the boat, and properly disposed of the sails, and those other implements that might be useful in the event of success Thus occupied, a couple of hours flew by, as though minutes were compressed into moments. At the expiration of that period, his labour had ceased. He then cut the gripes that had kept the launch in its place when the ship was in motion, leaving it standing upright on its wooden beds, but in no other manner connected with the hull, which, by this time, had settled so low as to create the apprehension, that, at any moment, it might sink from beneath them. After this measure of precaution was taken, the females were summoned to the boat, lest the crisis might be nearer than he supposed; for he well knew that a foundering ship was, like a tottering wall, liable at any moment to yield to the impulse of the downward pressure. He then commenced the scarcely less necessary operation of selection among the chaos of articles with which the ill-directed zeal of his companions had so c.u.mbered the boat, that there was hardly room left in which they might dispose of their more precious persons. Notwithstanding the often repeated and vociferous remonstrances of the negress, boxes, trunks, and packages flew from either side of the launch, as though Wilder had no consideration for the comfort and care of that fair being in whose behalf Ca.s.sandra, unheeded, like her ancient namesake of Troy, lifted her voice so often in the tones of remonstrance. The boat was soon cleared of what, under their circ.u.mstances, was literally lumber; leaving, however, far more than enough to meet all their wants, and not a few of their comforts, in the event that the elements should accord the permission to use them.

Then, and not till then, did Wilder relax in his exertions. He had arranged his sails, ready to be hoisted in an instant; he had carefully examined that no straggling rope connected the boat to the wreck, to draw them under with the foundering ma.s.s; and he had a.s.sured himself that food, water, compa.s.s, and the imperfect instruments that were then in use to ascertain the position of a ship, were all carefully disposed of in their several places, and ready to his hand. When all was in this state of preparation, he disposed of himself in the stern of the boat, and endeavoured, by the composure of his manner, to inspire his less resolute companions with a portion of his own firmness.

The bright sun-shine was sleeping in a thousand places on every side of the silent and deserted wreck. The sea had subsided to such a state of utter rest, that it was only at long intervals that the huge and helpless ma.s.s on which the ark of the expectants lay was lifted from its dull quietude, to roll heavily, for a moment, in the washing waters, and then to settle lower into the greedy and absorbing element. Still the disappearance of the hull was slow, and even tedious, to those who looked forward with such impatience to its total immersion, as to the crisis of their own fortunes.