Tom Lambourne steered: the sea was smooth, the wind light, and in our favor; so ere long the mast was shipped, and a sail hoisted to lessen the labor of the rowers.
We were anxious for the dense bank of purple cloud to clear away, that we might have a more extensive view of the horizon, and perhaps discover a sail, but the envious vapor seemed to darken and to roll before us, or rather before the wind that bore us after it.
About mid-day, when we were pausing on our oars, breathless and panting with heat, drenched with perspiration, which ran into our eyes and trickled down our breasts; and when visions of iced water and bitter beer came tantalizingly to memory—for sea and sky were equally hot, as the former seemed to welter and become oily under the blaze of the latter—a sharp-winged bird that skimmed past us suddenly caught the hollow eye of Hislop, who, I thought, was sleeping.
"Do you see that bird, Tom," he exclaimed, half starting up from the stern-sheets; "it is a man-of-war bird!"
"What then, sir?"
"We must be near land," replied the mate.
"Land!" reiterated every one in the boat, their voices expressing joy, surprise, or incredulity.
"Is it Brazil?" asked Tattooed Tom, with amazement in his singular face.
"I do not think so," said Hislop, passing a hand wearily and reflectively over his pale forehead. "Brazil—it is impossible, by the last reckoning I made before that Spaniard wounded me. But Heaven only knows where we may have drifted to since then!"
"The wind and currents may have taken us many hundred miles from where the last observation was made," added Carlton.