Then, the weather being still calm and foggy, Jacob and his passengers went on board the double-banked frigate for church service, where they all prayed with much hope and thanksgiving for what had passed and what was to come; and then they went into the commodore’s cabin, where they remained ever so long a time.
Let us go back this same week again––a very long seven days it has been for every body, particularly so for the icy-eyed man, who was extremely anxious, as he kicked and lashed his mule, and kept looking round the south side of Jamaica, from Portland Point to Pedro Bluff and San Negril, throwing a ray of cold frost there day and night, expecting that tall doctor to come striding along in that deep water, heading due north.
And at last the dark figure hove in sight, in the schooner “Rosalie”––the sweet little craft skimming exultingly over the seas, kissing them occasionally with both her dainty, glistening cheeks, reeling joyously over on her side, with her tidy dimity laced and spread in one flat sheet of white, while the slender arms bent like whalebone to the freshening breeze, and she left the dancing bubbles sparkling and flashing lovingly in her wake.
Two hundred miles to go, and the breeze fell from fresh to light, until at last, shrouded in a thick fog, one Sunday morning, when there was no air at all, only a flat calm, the sea as smooth as a glass mirror with the quicksilver clouded.
Then out sweeps, my lads! Ten of a side, and two of those bronzed old lads at each sweep! All except the two after ones, where Ben Brown and the tall doctor handled one apiece.
Thus, with sails down and bare arms, the light little “Rosalie” continued gliding rapidly over the mirrored surface––a little ashamed of herself, perhaps, at being seen in such a scanty rig––while her commander guided her graceful course, and Harry Greenfield peered about forward to see that no harm should arrest her dainty footsteps.
Presently was heard the toll of a bell. The sweeps paused, the hide gromets resting on the thole-pins, and the water raining from their broad blades.
“That must be a man-of-war off here on the quarter,” exclaimed the young officer at the tiller, “ringing for church.”
The old seamen at the sweeps unconsciously took off their hats, wiped the sweat from their brows, and listened.