Altona and then Blankenese, a tiny fishing village, with its houses scattered along the green slope among the trees, terraced over each other, were soon left astern, and the head of the cutter pointed towards Hamburg and then Stade, with the Prussian flag flying on the ramparts of Swingerschanze, where the White Horse of Hanover will never fly again.
The wind was blowing half a gale, and some reefs were taken in the boom-mainsail when the low batteries of Gluckstadt, on the Danish side of the river, were in sight, and darkness fell soon after the last rays of the sun faded out on the spire of Freyburg; and still the close-hauled cutter, with her lights hung out, laboured on, and ere long, as the river, with all its treacherous shoals, widened, she became assailed by impetuous attacks of the sea.
The past day had been dull and hazy, and the half-gale now subsided almost entirely, but then the cutter rolled heavily, adding to the misery of the unfortunate Ellinor. Then the wind, blowing from the level coast, would recover its strength, and, changing its direction, become furious, while a heavy swell came on, and when dawn stole in the Flying Foam, still close-hauled on the port tack, was standing over towards Cuxhaven, the shore of which is so low that the only objects seen against the sky were the flagstaff of a battery and the guns of the latter mounted en barbette.
There the river pilot went on shore, when the cutter, lying on the next tack, headed off to seaward, steered by Ringbolt himself, close to the wind, with her head just so near it as to keep the sails full without shaking them.
The baffling head-wind soon increased to a tempest; the timbers of the cutter groaned as she strained in the trough of the sea one moment and rode over a great wave the next, while the water poured in volumes over her deck, gorging the scuppers and carrying every loose article to leeward, and ere long the canvas was reduced until none was left than what was necessary for steering purposes.
All on board, even Dewsnap and Sleath, had donned their 'storm toggery,' and appeared on deck in oilskin jackets, with sou'-westers tied under their chins, the baronet making vows, as ever and anon he clutched a belaying pin, floundered into the loose bight of a rope, or had to oppose his back to a drenching sea, that if he were once safe on German or Danish soil, he would tempt the perils of 'the briny' no more.
All day the cutter, though so beautifully modelled and built, beat against the wind without making progress, and now one of those tempestuous gales that so often sweep the North Sea began to spend its fury on her.
Rufane Ringbolt began to look thoughtful; he had the well sounded; glanced at the binnacle and aloft ever and anon; put a fresh quid of tobacco in his cheek, and took a survey of the weather.
A cloud darker than usual and lower down obscured the sky, spreading over the zenith. A lambent glare of lightning shot through its darkest or densest part; another and another followed, and like the roar of artillery the thunder hurtled through the stormy air.
The wind lulled for an instant, permitting the Flying Foam to right herself from her careen, but again the wind bellowed over the sea, tearing away the foam and snow-white spoondrift from the wave-crests, and again the cutter was pressed down to her bearings by its force and fury.