Chapter 14

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's Curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burned.
SHAKESPEARE.

All this time matters were elsewhere passing in their usual train.
Jasper, like the weather and his vessel, seemed to be waiting for
the land-breeze; while the soldiers, accustomed to early rising,
had, to a man, sought their pallets in the main hold. None
remained on deck but the people of the cutter, Mr. Muir, and the
two females. The Quartermaster was endeavoring to render himself
agreeable to Mabel, while our heroine herself, little affected by
his assiduities, which she ascribed partly to the habitual gallantry
of a soldier, and partly, perhaps, to her own pretty face, was
enjoying the peculiarities of a scene and situation which, to her,
were full of the charms of novelty.

The sails had been hoisted, but as yet not a breath of air was in
motion; and so still and placid was the lake, that not the smallest
motion was perceptible in the cutter. She had drifted in the
river-current to a distance a little exceeding a quarter of a mile
from the land, and there she lay, beautiful in her symmetry and
form, but like a fixture. Young Jasper was on the quarter-deck,
near enough to hear occasionally the conversation which passed;
but too diffident of his own claim, and too intent on his duties,
to attempt to mingle in it. The fine blue eyes of Mabel followed
his motions in curious expectation, and more than once the
Quartermaster had to repeat his compliments before she heard them,
so intent was she on the little occurrences of the vessel, and, we
might add, so indifferent to the eloquence of her companion. At
length, even Mr. Muir became silent, and there was a deep stillness
on the water. Presently an oar-blade fell in a boat beneath the
fort, and the sound reached the cutter as distinctly as if it had
been produced on her deck. Then came a murmur, like a sigh of the
night, a fluttering of the canvas, the creaking of the boom, and
the flap of the jib. These well-known sounds were followed by a
slight heel in the cutter, and by the bellying of all the sails.

"Here's the wind, Anderson," called out Jasper to the oldest of
his sailors; "take the helm."

This brief order was obeyed; the helm was put up, the cutter's
bows fell off, and in a few minutes the water was heard murmuring
under her head, as the _Scud_ glanced through the lake at the rate
of five miles in the hour. All this passed in profound silence,
when Jasper again gave the order to "ease off the sheets a little
and keep her along the land."

It was at this instant that the party from the