"In what time will she overtake us?"
"She must be going seven or eight knots; we do not make more than five," he said, glancing over the side. "Probably in two hours' time."
"In two hours! We can increase our sail; you have studding-sails, captain?"
"But not a stun'sail boom—every deck-spar is washed overboard. Crippled as I am, I cannot carry one stitch more sail, my lord. We must let him come an he will, and trust the issue to Providence. That's my maxim, my lord."
"Providence give us the victory!" said the earl, devoutly.
"Amen!" responded the captain, taking the glass from his eye, and reverently touching his cap.
The earl immediately went below, and met Grace coming from her stateroom wrapped in comfortable garments, and enveloped in a hood and cloak.
"My dear niece," he said, taking her hand and leading her to a sofa, "I have come to prepare you for a scene of trial and danger infinitely greater than that we have just passed through. Hitherto we have had to contend with the terrible display of the power of the Almighty, when he moves upon the deep in his anger—but it was tempered with mercy. We have now to meet the fiercer passions of men, to whom the word mercy is unknown."
"Speak, dear uncle!" she said, with a calmness that surprised him. "I fear not for myself—I have a trust, thanks to my sainted mother, that places me above all fear of death."
This was spoken with that serene confidence which innocence and purity alone can wear.