Though heavy, the wind was fair for the Princess, but it bore her away from the shores of Britain, was Morley's first and regretful idea.
No other craft was in sight, and the gray sky imparted an opaque tint to the dark and tumbling sea, which seemed to follow her brine-dripping sides, as swiftly she darted on, at times cleaving asunder, or riding across, the long rolling mountains of water that burst in hissing showers over the varnished bowsprit and gilded catheads, over the iron windlass and forecastle bitts, and after drenching the cowering watch, poured away through the scuppers to leeward as the buoyant ship rose on each successive wave, like a gallant sea-bird trussing her pinions.
Amid that waste of waters, no living thing was visible from the deck, save a brown flock of Mother Carey's chickens, the stormy petrels, tripping with outspread wings up the slope of one wave and down the slope of another.
Though accustomed to the sea, by his past voyaging, Morley gazed around him with a bewildered air. He addressed something—he knew not what—to the men at the wheel, but the Scotch mate was too full of anxiety about his steering to reply, and, as for Mr. Noah Gawthrop, he heard the remark with stolid indifference, and expectorated vociferously to leeward.
The bronzed face and keen gray eyes of the Scotchman were turned alternately to the leech of the close-reefed foresail, the bellying of the storm staysail, and the compass-box, while his feet were planted firmly on the deck-grating, and his weather-beaten hands grasped the wheel like his shipmate on the other side.
Neither of these men ever spoke to each other. Instinct and skill taught them simultaneously and mutually when to keep her full and by, when to let her yaw, or when to let her ship a sea.
Wearied with toil, and the double watching of the past night, Captain Bartelot was asleep in his damp clothes on the cabin-locker. So noon passed away, and still the Princess flew on through mist and spray, under her close-reefed foresail and storm staysail.
Another vessel, similarly stripped of canvas, flew past them on the opposite tack, and, like a spectre, disappeared in the wrack and gloom; but, anon, the wind and sea went gradually down together, the clouds burst asunder, and the sun came joyously forth.
The gale gradually abated to a fine spanking breeze, the mainsail was set, and the reefs shaken out of the foresail; topsail after topsail were hoisted and sheeted home. Then followed the studding-sails and royals, and the Princess, with everything on her that "would draw," swept out into the waters of the mighty Atlantic.
A lovely evening followed, and a rosy sunset, but not a ship was in sight, and Morley now calculated that they must be more than 200 miles from land.