risk must be avoided, as the situation would become one of the gravest,
if the "Pilgrim" should be disabled by losing her masts.

Once or twice, also, the barometer rising gave reason to fear that the
wind might change point for point; that is to say, that it might pass
to the east. It would then be necessary to sail close to the wind!

A new anxiety for Dick Sand. What should he do with a contrary wind?
Tack about? But if he was obliged to come to that, what new delays and
what risks of being thrown into the offing.

Happily those fears were not realized. The wind, after shifting for
several days, blowing sometimes from the north, sometimes from the
south, settled definitely in the west. But it was always a strong
breeze, almost a gale, which strained the masting.

It was the 5th of April. So, then, more than two months had already
elapsed since the "Pilgrim" had left New Zealand. For twenty days a
contrary wind and long calms had retarded her course. Then she was in a
favorable condition to reach land rapidly. Her speed must even have
been very considerable during the tempest. Dick Sand estimated its
average at not less than two hundred miles a day! How, then, had he not
yet made the coast? Did it flee before the "Pilgrim?" It was absolutely
inexplicable.

And, nevertheless, no land was signaled, though one of the blacks kept
watch constantly in the crossbars.

Dick Sand often ascended there himself. There, with a telescope to his
eyes, he sought to discover some appearance of mountains. The Andes