To all these bewildering inquiries Dick could find no answer except to imagine that his compass had misled him. Yet he was powerless to put his own misgivings to the test; he deplored more than ever the destruction of the duplicate instrument which would have checked his registers. He studied his chart; but all in vain; the position in which he found himself as the result of Negoro's treachery, seemed to baffle him the more, the more he tried to solve the mystery.
The days were passing on in this chronic state of anxiety, when one morning about eight o'clock, Hercules, who was on watch at the fore, suddenly shouted,-
"Land!"
Dick Sands had little reliance upon the negro's inexperienced eye, but hurried forward to the bow.
"Where's the land?" he cried; his voice being scarcely audible above the howling of the tempest.
"There! look there!" said Hercules, nodding his head and pointing over the larboard side, to the north-east.
Dick could see nothing.
Mrs. Weldon had heard the shout. Unable to restrain her interest, she had left her cabin and was at Dick's side. He uttered an expression of surprise at seeing her, but could not hear anything she said, as her voice was unable to rise above the roaring of the elements; she stood, her whole being as it were concentrated in the power of vision, and scanned the horizon in the direction indicated by Hercules. But all to no purpose.
Suddenly, however, after a while, Dick raised his hand.
"Yes!" he said; "yes; sure enough, yonder is land."