dead to leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned.



CHAPTER IX
The Watery World Is All Before Them


At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!

Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a
speck to windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship
wending her way north-eastward.

Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters
as that which the Arcturion's crew must have imputed to the night
past (did not the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded
that little speck with many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it
was, did I feel in any very serene humor. For the consciousness of
being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being
so in reality. One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a
defunct carcass. Even Jarl's glance seemed so queer, that I begged
him to look another way.

Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he
most probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of
returning to the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution
that had thus far nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the
awful loneliness of the scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as
a slave, the steed that bore me whither I listed, and whose vicious