All eyes were turned in the direction of the land, long before it was possible to distinguish objects, at a distance, with certainty. At first, nothing but a waste of white waters, of billows racing after each other into a boundless space ahead, could be discerned. But finally, what seemed a long, low sand-bank, was made out, a short cable’s length off. It was a mere bar, elevated a few feet above the ocean, which, in many places, appeared to be actually making breaches over it. Not a house, nor even tree was distinguishable, on this barren and inhospitable shore; but here and there a few bushes, around which the drifting sand had collected, offered some slight opposition to the advancing waters.
For some time no one spoke. Kate’s heart swelled within her, and she could not frame words; once or twice she attempted it, and choked. She saw that the ship had struck on one of those uninhabited beaches, which the captain had described in the night; and that there was no longer any hope, for probably not a farmhouse, or human being existed within miles. As for Mrs. Warren, she gazed from the captain to her niece in speechless horror, wringing her hands, for she read in the face of each the despair that had succeeded to the momentary exhilaration produced by the dawn.
At last the master spoke. He had waited until the prospect brightened sufficiently landward to observe objects at some distance. But when he found that nothing was discernible, for miles on miles in that direction, through the drizzling mist—except salt marshes, against which even the partially protected waters inside the beach dashed fiercely, and over which the leaden-colored clouds swiftly drove,—he turned to Kate, and said, in a hoarse whisper.
“God help us, for there is none in man!”
Then, his thoughts reverting to his family, he ejaculated, “my poor wife!” and, completely unmanned, covered his face with his hands.
CHAPTER V.
THE COUNTRY TAVERN
The night drav’ on wi’ songs and clatter,
But aye the ale was growing better. —Burns.
We must now go back a few hours in our story, and introduce the reader to a different scene and personages.
The southern half of New Jersey is almost a dead level, covered with pine and oak forests, growing on a sandy soil. A slightly elevated ridge, however, runs in a southwesterly direction between Delaware Bay and the Atlantic, though much nearer the former than the latter, and divides the waters that flow westward from those that run toward the east.
One of the most considerable of the rivers, descending from this water-shed toward the Atlantic, empties into a wide, deep bay, almost shut in from the ocean by low beaches in its front. Notoriously the best anchoring ground between Sandy Hook and Cape May, it is a place of constant resort for coasters. At the time of which we write, it was, for similar reasons, a rendezvous for American privateers; and, in fact, their prizes usually discharged their cargoes on the neck of land where the river first swelled into the bay. Others, ascending higher up the stream, unloaded at the head of navigation, from which point the goods were carried across the country to Philadelphia by teams, the blockade of the Delaware, by the British fleet, preventing access often in a more direct way. It was not uncommon to find a dozen or two armed vessels lying in this river, waiting for a chance to sail.