"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."