Dory did not believe that the Sylph's people could see the Goldwing in the darkness and in the mist caused by the rain. He drew the slide, and crawled into the cabin, leaving the doors open so that he could see out upon the lake. After a while he saw the two lights of the steamer. She was moving very slowly to the northward. The green light disappeared as she came nearer.
The island was less than a mile from the mainland, and the Sylph was obliged to keep half a mile from the shore to clear the shoal. She passed the dangerous navigation, and Dory was strained up to the highest pitch of anxiety as he waited to see whether she was coming in any nearer to his hiding-place. He watched for the green light, but he saw only the red one.
The rain came down in torrents; and the skipper could hear the roar of the gale on the island, though he was completely sheltered from its fury. It was so thick out on the water that he could no longer see the red light, or only caught an occasional glimpse of it. The steamer had gone off to the northward, and this was evidence enough to Dory that his retreat had not been discovered. The excitement was over for that day and that night. The skipper put on the rest of his clothes, and turned in. While he was wondering whether the Sylph would make a harbor, and anchor for the night, or return to Plattsburgh, he dropped asleep. He was very tired, and he slept like a rock till the sun shone into the cabin in the morning.
Southerly storms are of short duration generally, and there was not a cloud in the sky when Dory went out into the standing-room to survey the situation. A gentle breeze was blowing from the west, and the appearance of the lake and its surroundings was as beautiful as the dream of a maiden. It was Sunday morning: he had been cruising for three days on the lake, and he was anxious to get home. But his first desire was to ascertain what had become of the Sylph. She was not to be seen from his position in the boat.
Taking a large slice of ham in one hand, and a quantity of hard-bread in the other, he waded to the shore. From the highest ground, he surveyed the islands and the mainland to the northward and eastward without seeing any thing of the steamer. Walking to the hill in the south of the island, the first thing he discovered, when he got high enough to see over the top of it, was the Sylph. She was headed to the south-west; and Dory concluded that she had spent the night under the lee of Butler's Island, two miles north of Wood's Island. She was bound through the Gut, and in a few minutes she disappeared from the skipper's view.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TERRIBLE INTELLIGENCE PROM HOME.
To say that Dory was delighted with the results of his strategy, when he saw the Sylph going through the Eastern Cut of the Gut, would be to state the case very mildly. He sat on the summit of the hill, and ate his ham and hard-bread with entire satisfaction; and, when he had finished it, the steamer was no longer in sight.