Chapter 23

"There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture;
they looked, as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: A
notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder,
that knew no more but seeing, could not say, if the importance were joy,
or sorrow;--but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be."

Winter's Tale.

As soon as the raft got fairly before the wind, and the breeze had
freshened, I had an opportunity of ascertaining what it would do. The
royal was a large one, and it stood well. I had brought a log-line and the
slow-glass with me, as well as my quadrant, slate, &c., and began to think
of keeping a reckoning. I had supposed the ship to be, when it fell calm,
about two hundred miles from the land, and I knew her to be in latitude
48° 37". The log-line told me, the raft moved through the water, all that
forenoon, at the rate of about half a knot in the hour; and could I keep
on for fifteen or sixteen days, in a straight course, I might yet hope to
get ashore. I was not so weak, however, as to expect any such miracle to
be wrought in my favour, though, had I been in the trades, the thing might
have occurred. By cutting adrift the two yards, or by getting them fore
and aft, in a line with the water, my rate of sailing might be doubled;
and I began seriously to think of effecting this great change. Cut the
yards adrift I did not like to do, their support in keeping me out of
water being very important. By hauling on the lift, I did get them in a
more oblique position, and in a measure thus lessened their resistance to
the element. I thought that even this improvement made a difference of
half a knot in my movement. Nevertheless, it was tedious work to be a
whole hour in going less than a single mile, when two hundred remained to
be travelled, and the risks of the ocean were thus constantly
impending over one!

What a day was that! It blew pretty fresh at one time, and I began to
tremble for my staging, or deck, which got washed several times, though
the top-sail-yard made for it a sort of lee, and helped to protect it.
Towards the decline of the day, the wind went down, and at sunset
everything was as tranquil as it had been the previous evening. I thought
I might have been eight or nine miles from the spot where the Dawn went
down, without computing the influence of the currents, which may have set
me all that distance back again, or so much further ahead, for anything I
knew of the matter. At sunset I took an anxious survey of the horizon, to
see if any sail were in sight; but nothing was visible.

Another tranquil night gave me another tranquil night's rest. I call the
last tranquil, as it proved to be in one sense, though I