Most of the passengers felt an intense curiosity to know the state of
things on the following morning, and all the men among them were dressed
and on deck just as the day began to break. The wind had been fresh and
steady all night, and as the ship had been kept with, her yards a little
checked, and topmast studding-sails set, the officers reported her to be
at least a hundred miles to the westward of the spot where she veered. The
reader will imagine the disappointment the latter experienced, then, when
they beheld the Foam a little on their weather-quarter, edging away for
them as assiduously as she had been hauling up for them, the night they
sailed from Portsmouth, distant little more than a league!
"This is indeed extraordinary perseverance," said Paul Blunt to Eve, at
whose side he was standing at the moment the fact was ascertained, "and I
think our captain might do well to heave-to and ascertain its cause."
"I hope not," cried his companion with vivacity. I confess to an _esprit
de corps_, and a gallant determination to 'see it out,' as Mr. Leach
styles his own resolution. One does not like to be followed about the
ocean in this manner, unless it be for the interest it gives the voyage.
After all, how much better is this than dull solitude, and what a zest it
gives to the monotony of the ocean!"
"Do you then find the ocean a scene of monotony?"
"Such it has oftener appeared to me than anything else, and I give it a
fair trial, having never _le mal de mer_.
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