In the three days they had sighted no
craft except such as their own--helpless--hove-to or scudding.
Boston had judged rightly in regard to the wind. It had hauled slowly
to the southward, allowing him to make the course he wished--through
the Bahama and up the Florida Channel with the wind over the stern.
During the day he could guide himself by landmarks, but at night, with
a darkened binnacle, he could only steer blindly on with the wind at
his back. The storm centre, at first to the south of Cuba, had made a
wide circle, concentric with the curving course of the ship, and when
the latter had reached the upper end of the Florida channel, had
spurted ahead and whirled out to sea across her bows. It was then that
the undiminished gale, blowing nearly west, had caused Boston, in
despair, to throw the wheel down and bring the ship into the trough of
the sea--to drift. Then the two wet, exhausted, hollow-eyed men slept
the sleep that none but sailors and soldiers know; and when they
awakened, twelve hours later, stiff and sore, it was to look out on a
calm, starlit evening, with an eastern moon silvering the surface of
the long, northbound rollers, and showing in sharp relief a dark
horizon, on which there was no sign of land or sail.
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