A steady breeze was blowing from off the land, and the white sails of the ship swelled proudly and the tapering spars bent under its influence, as she ploughed up the waves foaming and falling in divided masses before her prow. On any other occasion than the present, Bacon would have enjoyed the prospect on this grandest of all inland seas, but now his mind was oppressed with gloomy doubts and forebodings. Every plunge of the vessel was bearing him more within the grasp of his relentless foe. But the mishap of his own personal adventure, every way unfortunate as it was both for himself and the cause in which he had engaged, was not that which weighed most oppressively upon his mind. Ever since the discovery of the miniature contained in the locket, he had been gradually giving way to his reviving hopes, and building upon that slender assurance bright and glorious superstructures of imagination. He had endured and lived, and fought and conquered with that hope, as the polar star to his otherwise dark and dreary course. Now again his destinies were almost wrecked by a storm from a quarter in which he had scarcely cast his eyes. How could he imagine that Sir William Berkley would be driven from the capital, by the stern and independent resistance of the unarmed citizens? How could he know that being thus driven from it he would yet retain a sufficient naval force to capture him and his escort upon the very eve of his triumphal entry into the city? These were the reflections which made him look with a feeling of dark misanthropy upon the glorious beauties of the Chesapeake. His ambition, his pride, and his conscience were satisfied; but his love for a bride, already once led to the very steps of the altar, was again thwarted upon the eve of what he had supposed and hoped would prove the final and happy fulfilment of his most ardent hopes. His feelings toward the devoted and interesting maiden, who had perilled and suffered so much on his account, were enthusiastic in the highest degree. She stood toward him not only in the relation of his betrothed, but his wedded bride; and the more endearing and captivating she became to him as he contemplated her in these relations, the more he cursed in his heart the hard-hearted and perverse old man who had been the cause of all his troubles. Every chance of escape was intensely examined; not a word was suffered to fall unheeded from Captain Gardiner and his subordinates. He noted carefully the distribution of the prisoners in the vessel in which he was himself confined, as well as of those in the sloop following in their wake. He took careful observations of the most prominent objects on their route--the state of the tide in the river which they had just left. He examined the boats--how they were secured--the equipments and appearance of the crew on board, and resolved if he must fall in the midst of his reviving hopes, to die as became the conqueror of Bloody Run and the lover of Virginia Fairfax.