With the British Legion: A Story of the Carlist Wars

by G. A. Henty

The rain had ceased falling, but the air was still thick, and heavy clouds were passing overhead. At one o'clock, however, these began to break, and two hours later the sun shone out brightly.

"That is a comfort," Arthur said. "In the first place it will dry us, in the second place it will cheer us, and in the third it will enable us to see a long way."

He stood up and looked round. "I can see nothing at present," he said. "It is only when we get on the top of a wave that we can see any distance."

About five o'clock in the evening they made out a sail, but it was a long way off, and was already to the west of them; and it was seen at once that it would be absolutely useless to try and row after the ship, as she was running rapidly along, although under a very small amount of canvas. Still, the sight of the vessel cheered them. They had seen one, and there was no reason why they should not see more. They now knew that the wind was blowing more from the south than it had done, and that they were therefore running to the north. This was an advantage, for they would be making rather towards than away from the French coast, and, when the wind fell, might hope to reach it.

The next morning the wind had dropped a good deal. The day was bright and clear, and they allowed themselves a double portion of wine and bread. Then they got the mast up, undid the lashings of the sail, and hoisted it half-way up, making holes in the canvas by which they could put an extra reef in. Under this very reduced canvas they were able to sail comfortably, though all of them had to sit up to windward. The wind had come still more round to the west of south, so they were able to lay their course due east.

"How far are we off land, do you think, Hallett?"

"Well, we have been about sixty-six hours out. By the course we ran the first twenty-four, we made, at six knots an hour, about a hundred and forty-four miles, which would put us, I should say, something like seventy to the nearest point of France. The next twenty-four hours we were running nearly north, so during that time we must have kept about the same distance from the coast. Last night we must have been approaching rather than running away from it. Well, we are now going about four knots through the water. If the wind falls more, and we can put up more sail, we shall walk along a little faster; but until the sea goes down, I don't think we can calculate upon making above five knots. But if we are now, as I suppose, nearly in a line with the mouth of the Loire, we may not be more than thirty or forty miles from the shore; for, although I don't pretend to be particularly well up in geography, I know that the French coast runs out a good deal west till it gets to Brest."

At twelve o'clock Sinclair stood up and looked round. "I can make out a dark line," he said, "over there to the left; it looks to me like land. We should have seen it before but for the sail."

Arthur was as usual steering, but the others all went forward to have a look, and Sinclair took the helm for a minute to allow him to do so.

"That is land certainly," he said. "I should say that it is stretching out towards Brest; but I think we had better keep straight on. It may take us a few more hours to get to shore, but it would save us a lot of travelling if we were to strike the mouth of the Loire instead of Brest. At any rate we are safe now, and can venture upon a slice of bread each and a full glass of wine--a glass and a half in fact; that will still leave us with half a bottle for breakfast to-morrow morning. We may fairly calculate upon being close to land by that time."