The business of getting the anchors occupied a considerable time, for Maso refused, now there existed no necessity for the sacrifice, to permit a yarn to be cut; but, released from this hold on the water, the bark whirled away, and was soon driving before the wind.  The mariner was at the helm, and, causing the head-sail to be loosened, he steered directly for the rocks of Savoy.  This manoeuvre excited disagreeable suspicions in the minds of several on board, for the lawless character of their pilot had been more than suspected in the course of their short acquaintance, and the coast towards which they were furiously rushing known to be iron-bound, and, in such a gale fatal to all who came rudely upon its rocks.  Half-an-hour removed their apprehensions.  When near enough to the mountains to feel their deadening influence on the gale, the natural effect of the eddies, formed by their resistance to the currents, he luffed-to and set his main-sail.  Relieved by this wise precaution, the Winkelried now wore her canvass gallantly, and she dashed along the shore of Savoy with a foaming beak, shooting past ravine, valley, glen, and hamlet, as if sailing in air.

In less than an hour, St. Gingoulph, or the village through which the dividing line between the territories of Switzerland and those of the King of Sardinia passes, was abeam, and the excellent calculations of the sagacious Maso became still more apparent.  He had foreseen another shift of wind, as the consequence of all this poise and counterpoise, and he was here met by the true breeze of the night.  The last current came out of the gorge of the Valais, sullen, strong, and hoarse, bringing him, however, fairly to windward of his port.  The Winkelried was cast in season, and, when the gale struck her anew, her canvass drew fairly, and she walked out from beneath the mountains into the broad lake, like a swan obeying its instinct.

The passage across the width of the Leman, in that horn of the crescent and in such a breeze, required rather more than an hour.  This time was occupied among the common herd in self-felicitations, and in those vain boastings that distinguish the vulgar who have escaped an imminent danger without any particular merit of their own.  Among those whose spirits were better trained and more rebuked, there were attentions to the sufferers and deep thanksgivings with the touching intercourse of the grateful and happy.  The late scenes, and the fearful fate of the patron and Nicholaus Wagner, cast a shade upon their joy, but all inwardly felt that they had been snatched from the jaws of death.

Maso shaped his course by the beacon that still blazed in the grate of old Roger de Blonay.  With his eye riveted on the luff of his sail, his hip bearing hard against the tiller, and a heart that relieved itself, from time to time, with bitter sighs, he ruled the bark like a presiding spirit.