wind's eye. Aist it is; I'll make a soldier's wind of it, and thrust
to chance."

He set the sail and came aft with the sheet. Then he shifted the
rudder, lit a pipe, leaned luxuriously back and gave the bellying
sail to the gentle breeze.

It was part of his profession, part of his nature, that, steering,
maybe, straight towards death by starvation and thirst, he was as
unconcerned as if he were taking the children for a summer's sail.
His imagination dealt little with the future; almost entirely
influenced by his immediate surroundings, it could conjure up no
fears from the scene now before it. The children were the same.

Never was there a happier starting, more joy in a little boat.
During breakfast the seaman had given his charges to understand
that if Dick did not meet his father and Emmeline her uncle in a
"while or two," it was because he had gone on board a ship, and
he'd be along presently. The terror of their position was as deeply
veiled from them as eternity is veiled from you or me.

The Pacific was still bound by one of those glacial calms that can
only occur when the sea has been free from storms for a vast
extent of its surface, for a hurricane down by the Horn will send
its swell and disturbance beyond the Marquesas. De Bois in his
table of amplitudes points out that more than half the sea
disturbances at any given space are caused, not by the wind, but
by storms at a great distance.

But the sleep of the Pacific is only apparent. This placid lake,