As Anthony foretold, the wind slackened during the night and the sea ran down; the sun rose, huge and yellow, in the morning, and the sky bent lightly to the water on the horizon's edge. The wind continued good and from the southwest; the schooner heeled a little to it, her sails bulging full; and either Anthony or Corkery constantly walked the deck. But no eye on board was as watchful as Tom Horn's, as those smooth, rolling days at sea slipped by. He'd take his place in the bow, early of a morning, and there he'd stay with intent face until far into the night. The water racing past the vessel's side seemed to fascinate him; he'd brood over its passage, wearing a strange look; and as the earth slowly turned, giving a new facet to the sun's warmth, the odd clerk would watch its progress in wonder and in silence. The lowering sun, almost level in the west, one evening caught an object to the east and held it glittering. "St. Michael's," said Anthony, searching the spot with a glass. The rising of the Azores caused a deal of excitement in Tom Horn. He came aft to where Anthony stood, and the young man felt a shaking hand upon his arm. "South," said Tom Horn. "South, and a trifle to the west, the merest trifle; for that is as the waters run. The ship may be in those seas," and he pointed to starboard: "she may be drifting there, still outside the rim of dead things. We must watch, night and day; we must watch!" The _Roebuck_ was headed south, and so held for a week; there followed a succession of light winds; they made but little headway; and with each day the sea grew quieter; there seemed a gathering of drift on the surface; the sky was shot with yellow; the dulled sun threw off a sweltering heat. At last the sails hung idle; rocking gently, the schooner was borne on through a thickening sea. "Slowly," said Tom Horn, "very slowly." He gazed about over the forbidding waters, a look that seemed both exaltation and fear, in his strange eyes. "It was about here that the _William and Mary_ first touched the edge of that strange place," he said. "She drifted as we are drifting; sometimes it seemed that she did not move at all. But she came to it at last, as all helpless things must come to it when once the circle draws them. Without wind we are as helpless as she was," said Tom Horn. "Just as helpless. And we are being carried on, as she was carried on, and as the _Rufus Stevens_ is being carried on, somewhere outside our vision." Corkery, who stood by, and heard the man's words, cocked an eye after him as he went forward; and he said to Anthony: "He's worse than I ever saw him before. I've heard say he was out of balance, but up to now I have noticed only that he kept stiller than most." "He is excited," said Anthony. "This region brings up memories of certain suffering he's gone through." Corkery said nothing for a space, and his keen eye went backward and forward over the sluggish sea. Then he spoke: