This remark of Hazard's was very just. The seas that came down upon the cape resembled a rolling prairie in their outline. A single wave would extend a quarter of a mile from trough to trough, and as it passed beneath the schooner, lifting her high in the air, it really seemed as if the glancing water would sweep her away in its force. But human art had found the means to counteract even this imposing display of the power of nature. The little schooner rode over the billows like a duck, and when she sank between two of them, it was merely to rise again on a new summit, and breast the gale gallantly. It was the current that menaced the greatest danger; for that, unseen except in its fruits, was clearly setting the little craft to leeward, and bodily towards the rocks. By this time our adventurers were so near the land that they almost gave up hope itself. Cape Hatteras and its much-talked-of dangers, seemed a place of refuge compared to that in which our navigators now found themselves. Could the deepest bellowings of ten thousand bulls be united in a common roar, the noise would not have equalled that of the hollow sound which issued from a sea as it went into some cavern of the rocks. Then, the spray filled the air like driving rain, and there were minutes when the cape, though so frightfully near, was hid from view by the vapour. At this precise moment, the Sea Lion was less than a quarter of a mile to windward of the point she was struggling to weather, and towards which she was driving under a treble impetus; that of the wind, acting on her sails, and pressing her ahead at the rate of fully five knots, for the craft was kept a rap full; that of the eddy, or current, and that of the rolling waters. No man spoke, for each person felt that the crisis was one in which silence was a sort of homage to the Deity. Some prayed privately, and all gazed on the low rocky point that it was indispensable to pass, to avoid destruction. There was one favourable circumstance; the water was known to be deep, quite close to the iron-bound coast, and it was seldom that any danger existed, that it was not visible to the eye. This, Roswell knew from Stimson's accounts, as well as from those of other mariners, and he saw that the fact was of the last importance to him. Should he be able to weather the point ahead, that which terminated at the mouth of the passage that led within the Hermits, it was now certain it could be done only by going fearfully near the rocks. Roswell Gardiner took his station between the knight-heads, beckoning to Stimson to come near him. At the same time, Hazard himself went to the helm. "Do you remember this place?" asked the young master of the old seaman. "This is the spot, sir; and if we can round the rocky point ahead, I will take you to a safe anchorage. Our drift is awful, or we are in an eddy tide here, sir!"