"Land?" cried Dick Sand.

"There," replied Hercules, showing an almost imperceptible point on the
horizon in the northeast.

They hardly heard each other speak in the midst of the roaring of the
sea and the sky.

"You have seen the land?" said the novice.

"Yes," replied Hercules.

And his hand was still stretched out to larboard forward.

The novice looked. He saw nothing.

At that moment, Mrs. Weldon, who had heard the cry given by Hercules,
came up on deck, notwithstanding her promise not to come there.

"Madam!" cried Dick Sand.

Mrs. Weldon, unable to make herself heard, tried, for herself, to
perceive that land signaled by the black, and she seemed to have
concentrated all her life in her eyes.

It must be believed that Hercules's hand indicated badly the point of
the horizon which he wished to show: neither Mrs. Weldon nor the novice
could see anything.