No sooner was the schooner released from the ground than her sails were filled, and she went by the low spit of sand already mentioned, with the light south-west breeze still blowing in her favour, and an ebb tide. Everything appeared propitious, and no vessel probably ever left home under better omens. The deacon remained on board until Baiting Joe, who was to act as his boatman, reminded him of the distance and the probability that the breeze would go down entirely with the sun. As it was, they had to contend with wind and tide, and it would require all his own knowledge of the eddies to get the whale-boat up to Oyster Pond in anything like reasonable time. Thus admonished, the owner tore himself away from his beloved craft, giving "young Gar'ner" as many 'last words' as if he were about to be executed. Roswell had a last word on his part, however, in the shape of a message to Mary. "Tell Mary, deacon," said the young sailor, in an aside, "that I rely on her promise, and that I shall think of her, whether it be under the burning sun of the line, or among the ice of the antarctic." "Yes, yes; that's as it should be," answered the deacon, heartily. "I like your perseverance, Gar'ner, and hope the gal will come round yet, and I shall have you for a nephew. There's nothing that takes the women's minds like money. Fill up the schooner with skins and ile, and bring back that treasure, and you make as sure of Mary for a wife as if the parson had said the benediction over you." Such was Deacon Pratt's notion of his niece, as well as of the female sex. For months he regarded this speech as a _coup de maitre_, while Roswell Gardiner forgot it in half an hour; so much better than the uncle did the lover comprehend the character of the niece. The Sea Lion, of Oyster Pond, had now cast off the last ligament which connected her with the land. She had no pilot, none being necessary, or usual, in those waters; all that a vessel had to do being to give Long Island a sufficient berth in rounding its eastern extremity. The boat was soon shut in by Gardiner's Island, and thenceforth nothing remained but the ties of feeling to connect those bold adventurers with their native country. It is true that Connecticut, and subsequently Rhode Island, was yet visible on one hand, and a small portion of New York on the other; but as darkness came to close the scene, even that means of communication was soon virtually cut off. The light on Montauk, for hours, was the sole beacon for these bold mariners, who rounded it about midnight, fairly meeting the long, rolling swell of the broad Atlantic. Then the craft might be said to be at sea for the first time.