On came the steamer, which Electra's untrained eyes, almost blinded by spray, could barely discern; and her heart beat like a muffled drum as it drew nearer and nearer. Once she heard a low, chuckling laugh of satisfaction escape the captain; then, with startling distinctness, the ringing of a bell was borne from the steamer's deck.
"Four bells—two o'clock. How chagrined they will be to-morrow, when they find out they passed me without paying their respects!" whispered the captain.
Gradually the vessel receded, the dark mass grew indistinct, the light flickered, and was soon lost to view, and the sound of the labouring machinery was drowned in the roar of the waves.
Before he went back on deck, the captain made a comfortable place for her on the sofa in the little cabin. The storm increased until it blew a perfect hurricane, and the schooner rolled and creaked, now and then shivering in every timber. It was utterly impossible to sleep, and Eric, who was suffering from a headache, passed a miserable night. In the white sickly dawn the captain looked in again, and Electra thought that no ray of sunshine could be more radiant or cheering than his joyous, noble face.
About noon the fury of the gale subsided, the sun looked out through rifts in the scudding clouds, and toward night fields of quiet blue were once more visible. By next morning the weather had cleared up, with a brisk westerly wind; but the sea still rolled heavily; and Eric, unable to bear the motion, kept below, loth to trust himself on his feet. Electra strove to while away the tedious time by reading aloud to him; but many a yearning look was cast toward the deck, and finally she left him with a few books, and ran up to the open air.
On the afternoon of the third day after leaving Havana the captain said—
"Well, Miss Grey, I shall place you on Confederate soil to-morrow, God willing."
"Then you are going to Mobile?"
"Yes; I shall try hard to get in there early in the morning. You will know your fate before many hours."
"Do you regard this trial as particularly hazardous?"