“Then I will go on board of the yacht to-night, sir; but you need not wait for me, for I think I can catch you if you should get two or three hours the start of me. I haven’t used my balloon jib yet, and am rather anxious to do so.”
“I shall not wait for you, then, Paul.”
After a long conversation with Mrs. Blacklock, in which he assured her again that nothing but firmness on her part could save her son from ruin, the principal left the hotel, and returned to the ship. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Kendall went on board of the Grace. On the following morning, the wind being a little north of west, the signal for sailing was displayed on board of the Young America, and at six o’clock the fleet were under way. The weather was beautiful, and the fresh breeze enabled all the vessels to log eight knots an hour, which brought them fairly into the Skager Rack early in the afternoon.
“I suppose we are off the coast of Sweden now,” said Norwood, as he glanced at the distant hills on the left.
“The pilot said Frederikshald was in this direction,” replied Captain Lincoln, pointing to the shore. “It is at the head of a small fjord, and is near the line between Norway and Sweden.”
“Charles XII. was killed there—wasn’t he?”
“That’s the place. The fortress of Frederiksteen is there, on a perpendicular rock four hundred feet high.”
“I wish we went nearer to the Swedish coast,” added Norwood.
“We shall see enough of it before we leave the Baltic,” said Lincoln.
“Probably we shall not care to see it after we have been looking at it a week.”