"No immediate peril, thank God."
"Not in calm weather like this."
"Two chances for life—she must either make land, or be picked up by some vessel at sea."
"... Beautifully still it is, Miss Sylvia. Might have been shipwrecked in a storm, you know."
It came to my confused senses that they were very good—these men; for they, too, were in peril of their lives; yet the chief anxiety of one and all was to calm mine and Sylvia's fears.
Another blanket was passed up for us to sit upon. And then they started an earnest consultation among themselves.
There were four sailors in our boat. Gilliland—the big, burly fellow who had lighted his pipe—and Evans, and Hookway, and Davis. Dr. Atherton and the first mate made six; and Sylvia and I made eight.
The long-boat was a good deal bigger than the cutter; and she held eighteen to twenty men.
We gathered from their talk that the May Queen, after Captain Maitland had altered her course, had run two hundred and fifty miles out of what they termed "the track of trade"; and that unless we got back to the old track again, there was small chance of our being picked up by another vessel.
On the other hand, to make for the nearest land, we would have to traverse the ocean for some six hundred miles, and Mr. Wheeler, it seemed, was hesitating as to which course to take.