Chapter 20

"The mouse ne'er shunned the cat, as they did budge
From rascals worse than they."

Coriolanus.

Day dawned on the Atlantic, with its pearly light, succeeded by the usual
flushing of the skies, and the stately rising of the sun from out the
water. The instant the vigilant officer, who commanded the morning watch,
caught the first glimpses of the returning brightness, Ludlow was
awakened. A finger laid on his arm, was sufficient to arouse one who slept
with the responsibility of his station ever present to his mind. A minute
did not pass, before the young man was on the quarter-deck, closely
examining the heavens and the horizon. His first question was to ask if
nothing had been seen during the watch. The answer was in the negative.

"I like this opening in the north-west," observed the captain, after his
eye had thoroughly scanned the whole of the still dusky and limited view.
"Wind will come out of it. Give us a cap-full, and we shall try the speed
of this boasted Water-Witch!--Do I not see a sail, on our
weather-beam?--or is it the crest of a wave?"

"The sea is getting irregular, and I have often been thus deceived, since
the light appeared."

"Get more sail on the ship. Here is wind, in-shore of us; we will be ready
for it. See every thing clear, to show all our canvas."

The lieutenant received these orders with the customary deference and
communicated them to his inferiors again, with the promptitude that
distinguishes sea discipline. The Coquette, at the moment, was lying under
her three top-sails, one of which was thrown against its mast, in a manner
to hold the vessel as nearly stationary as her drift and the wash of the
waves would allow. So soon, however, as the officer of the watch summoned
the people to exertion, the massive yards were swung; several light sails,
that served to balance the fabric as well as to urge it ahead, were
hoisted or opened; and the ship immediately began to move through the
water. While the men of the watch were thus employed, the flapping of the
canvas announced the approach of a new breeze.

The coast of North America is liable to sudden and dangerous transitions,
in the currents of the air. It is a circumstance of no unusual occurrence,
for a gale to alter its direction with so little warning, as greatly to
jeopard the safety of a ship, or even to overwhelm her. It has been often
said, that the celebrated Ville de Paris was lost through one of these
violent changes, her captain having inadvertently hove-to the vessel under
too much after-sail, a mistake by which he lost the command of his ship
during the pressing emergency that ensued. Whatever may have been the fact
as regards that ill-fated