“You have had a tranquil watch, Jack,” said Harry, when he was called by the person named, and had fairly aroused himself from his slumbers. “Has the wind stood as it is since sunset?” “No change whatever, sir. It has blown a good working breeze the whole watch, and what is surprising, not as much lipper has got up as would frighten a colt on a sea beach.” “We must be near the reef, by that. I think the only currents we feel come from the tide, and they seem to be setting us back and forth, instead of carrying us in any one settled direction.” “Quite likely, sir; and this makes my opinion of what I saw an hour since all the more probable.” “What you saw! In the name of a merciful Providence, Tier, do not trifle with me. Has any thing been seen near by?” “Don’t talk to me of your liquors and other dhrinks,” murmured Biddy in her sleep. “It’s wather that is a blessed thing; and I wish I lived, the night and the day, by the swate pump that’s in our own yard, I do.” “The woman has been talking in her sleep, in this fashion, most of the watch,” observed Jack, coolly, and perhaps a little contemptuously. “But, Mr. Mulford, unless my eyes have cheated me, we are near that boat again. The passage through the reef is close aboard us, here, on our larboard bow, as it might be, and the current has sucked us in it in a fashion to bring it in a sort of athwart-hawse direction to us.” “If that boat, after all, should be sent by Providence to our relief! How long is it since you saw it, Jack?” “But a bit since, sir; or, for that matter, I think I see it now. Look hereaway, sir, just where the dead-eyes of the fore-rigging would bear from us, if the craft stood upon her legs, as she ought to do. If that isn’t a boat, it’s a rock out of water.” Mulford gazed through the gloom of midnight, and saw, or fancied he saw, an object that might really be the boat. It could not be very distant either; and his mind was instantly made up as to the course he would pursue. Should it actually turn out to be that which he now so much hoped for, and its distance in the morning did not prove too great for human powers, he was resolved to swim for it at the hazard of his life. In the meantime, or until light should return, there remained nothing to do but to exercise as much patience as could be summoned, and to confide in God, soliciting his powerful succor by secret prayer.