He had noticed the clouds being swept rapidly overhead in the same direction in which the boat was travelling; but, all at once, they now appeared to be stationary, or else, the waves must be bearing their frail little craft along faster than the wind’s speed. What could this puzzling state of things mean? Eric reflected a moment and then astonished Fritz as they both sat in the stern-sheets, by convulsively grasping his hand.
“The wind has turned, brother!” he cried out in a paroxysm of joy.
Fritz thought he was going mad. “Why, my poor fellow, what’s the matter?” he said soothingly.
“Matter, eh?” shouted out Eric boisterously, wringing | his brother’s hand up and down. “I mean that the wind has changed! It is chopping round to the opposite | corner of the compass, like most gales in these latitudes, that’s what’s the matter! See those clouds there?”
Fritz looked up to where the other pointed in the sky—to a spot near the zenith.
“Well,” continued the lad, “a moment ago those clouds there were whirling along the same course as ourselves. Then, when I first called out to you, they stopped, as if uncertain what to do; while now, as you can notice for yourself, they seem to be impelled in the very opposite direction. What do you think that means?”
Fritz was silent, only half convinced, for the send of the sea appeared to be rolling their unhappy boat further and further from the island, which, only a bare speck on the horizon, could be but very faintly seen astern, low down on the water.
“It means,” said Eric, answering his own question, without waiting longer for his brother’s reply, “that the same wind which bore us away from our dear little bay is about to waft us back again to it; still, we must look out sharply to help ourselves and not neglect a chance. Oars out, old fellow!”
“But, it is impossible to row amidst these waves,” the other expostulated.
“Bah, nothing is impossible to brave men!” cried the sailor lad valiantly. “I only want to get her head round to sea. Perhaps, though, my old friend that served me in such good stead when the Gustav Barentz foundered may serve my turn better now; we’ll try a floating anchor, brother, that’s what we’ll do, eh?”