But
it was four months from the beginning of this strange voyage when the
two men, gaunt and hungry--with ruined digestions and shattered
nerves--saw, with joy which may be imagined, the first land and the
first sail that gladdened their eyes after the storm in the Florida
Channel.
A fierce gale from the southwest had been driving them, broadside on,
in the trough of the sea, for the whole of the preceding day and night;
and the land they now saw appeared to them a dark, ragged line of blue,
early in the morning. Boston could only surmise that it was the coast
of Portugal or Spain. The sail--which lay between them and the land,
about three miles to leeward--proved to be the try-sail of a black
craft, hove-to, with bows nearly towards them.
Boston climbed the foremast with their only flag and secured it; then,
from the high poop-deck, they watched the other craft, plunging and
wallowing in the immense Atlantic combers, often raising her forefoot
into plain view, again descending with a dive that hid the whole
forward half in a white cloud of spume.
"If she was a steamer I'd call her a cruiser," said Boston; "one of
England's black ones, with a storm-sail on her military mainmast.
Pages:
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433