Chapter 8 - Page 2

She wondered at
the expedition of Ludlow, who was not accustomed to show such haste in
quitting her presence, and leaned over the railing to catch a glimpse of
his departing boat. Each moment she expected to see the little bark issue
from out of the shadows of the land, into the sheet of brightness which
stretched nearly to the cruiser. She gazed long, and in vain, for no barge
appeared, and yet the sound had become inaudible. A light still hung at
the peak of the Coquette, a sign that the commander was out of his vessel.

The view of a fine ship, seen by the aid of the moon, with its symmetry of
spars, and its delicate tracery of cordage, and the heavy and grand
movements of the hull as it rolls on the sluggish billows of a calm sea,
is ever a pleasing and indeed an imposing spectacle. Alida knew that
more, than a hundred human beings slept within the black and silent mass,
and her thoughts insensibly wandered to the business of their daring
lives, their limited abode, and yet wandering existence, their frank and
manly qualities, their devotion to the cause of those who occupied the
land, their broken and interrupted connexion with the rest of the human
family, and finally to those weakened domestic ties, and to that
reputation for inconstancy, which are apparently a natural consequence of
all. She sighed, and her eye wandered from the ship to that ocean on which
it was constructed to dwell. From the distant, low, and nearly
imperceptible shore of the island of Nassau, to the coast of New-Jersey,
there was one broad and untenanted waste. Even the sea-fowl rested his
tired wing, and slept tranquilly on the water. The broad space appeared
like some great and unfrequented desert, or rather like a denser and more
material copy of the firmament by which it was canopied.

It has been mentioned that a stunted growth of oaks and pines covered much
of the sandy ridge that formed the cape. The same covering furnished a
dark setting to the waters of the Cove. Above this outline of wood, which
fringed the margin of the sea. Alida now fancied she saw an object in
motion. At first, she believed some ragged and naked tree, of which the
coast had many, was so placed as to deceive her vision, and had thrown its
naked lines upon the back-ground of water, in a manner to assume the shape
and tracery of a light-rigged vessel. But when the dark and symmetrical
spars were distinctly seen, gliding past objects that were known to be
stationary, it was impossible to doubt their character. The maiden
wondered, and her surprise was not unmixed with apprehension. It seemed as
if the stranger for such the vessel must needs be, was recklessly
approaching a surf, that, in its most tranquil moments, was dangerous to
such a fabric, and that