"Yes," she answered, quite calmly, "I'm sure they will."
It was a coastwise steamer, and almost immediately they saw her black bulk a few rods away; and then a light fell on the water from a boat near, and a man shouted. Lawrence raised his own voice in reply.
CHAPTER VIII.
ON BOARD THE SCYTHIA.
The two were lifted into the boat. They were shivering in the wind, but their eyes were on fire with the excitement of the last two hours.
"Don't take us to that steamer," said Lawrence to one of the men who was rowing; "put us on board something that will carry us to the land. We must be in Boston to-morrow. Must,—do you hear?"
The young man spoke imperatively. He was possessed by an imperious longing to get to a clergyman, that he and Prudence might be married directly; and they must embark on the Scythia. That was the one feasible thing to do,—the one thing now to which he would bend all his energies. He was burning to get to the shore. He thought he could almost attempt to swim there,—anything, rather than the perplexities and delays which would come if they were obliged to go on board that coastwise steamer.
"I can't do it, you know. I can't do it," answered the man, "'less we happen to come upon somethin'. There's the steamer hove to 'n' waitin'. No, I don't see how it can be done."
Lawrence was fuming. How was he going to bear any delays? It was as if the very air he breathed were poisoning him until he could leave America behind him. He had a fancy that if America were only far away, there would be no clouds over his sky.
"What's that?" hurriedly asked Prudence, interrupting the man, who was again saying that "it couldn't be done, nohow."