As for myself, I got behind the
head of the mast, and fairly sobbed. This lasted a few minutes, when
an order from the mate called us both below. When I reached the deck,
the boat was already a long distance astern, and had evidently given
up the idea of boarding us. I do not know whether I felt the most
relieved or pained by the certainty of this fact.
CHAPTER IV.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
Brutus--Julius Caesar.
In four hours from the time when Rupert and I last saw Mr. Hardinge,
the ship was at sea. She crossed the bar, and started on her long
journey, with a fresh north-wester, and with everything packed on that
she would bear. We took a diagonal course out of the bight formed by
the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey, and sunk the land entirely
by the middle of the afternoon. I watched the highlands of Navesink,
as they vanished like watery clouds in the west, and then I felt I was
at last fairly out of sight of land. But a foremast hand has little
opportunity for indulging in sentimen, as he quits his native shore;
and few, I fancy, have the disposition.
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