At nine o'clock in the morning Will went out on the piazza, and the white appearance of the water surprised him. So did the wind, coming in a steady sweep from the northward, cooling the air, and churning the Florida Strait into foam. Vic soon joined him, looking anxiously from water to sky and sky to water, and shook her head.
An hour later he found her pacing the piazza, looking very much troubled. The wind had increased, and the water was wild and furious.
"It is a norther," she said, "and a bad one. I don't see why it had to come to-day."
"It is a fair wind to carry them to Cuba," Will suggested.
"It is just the wind to drive them on the rocks and wreck them," Vic retorted. "They will certainly try to land to-night, and they have only one little boat. That would be nothing among all those men."
She took two or three more turns up and down, and then stopped.
"I am going to cross the straits in my sharpie, Will," she said. "If anything happens to them the sharpie may be of great assistance. It is the best little sea-boat I know of."
"To cross to Cuba, you mean?" Will asked, without showing any great surprise.
"Yes," she answered. "It is only eighty miles, and I can make it before dark. I have made longer voyages than that."