Nor was she altogether unjust in this. The breeze had died away at sunrise; and in the interval before the land-wind should spring up there was almost a dead calm.
“Is she moving at all?” cried Lucy, to one of the sailors who lounged on the rocks beneath the window.
The man thought not. They had kept their course too far from shore, and were becalmed in consequence.
How could they have done so?—surely sailors ought to have known better! and Tom, who was always boasting how he knew every current, and every eddy of wind, what was he about? It was a rude shock to that sweet optimism of a few moments back to have to own that here at least was something that might have been better.
“And what ought they to do, what can they do?” asked she, impatiently, of the sailor.
“Wait till towards noon, when the land-breeze freshens up, and beat.”
“Beat means, go back and forward, scarcely gaining a mile an hour?”
The sailor smiled, and owned she was not far wrong.
“Which means that they may pass the day there,” cried she, fretfully.
“They're not going to do it, anyhow,” said the man; “they are lowering a boat, and going to row ashore.”