The gaze of Miguel became less wild, but he looked at Robert with awe and then with superstition.

“You have brought us bad luck,” he exclaimed.  “An evil day for us when you came aboard.”

Robert laughed.  A fanciful humor seized him.

“But this is my place,” he said.  “I, Peter Smith, belong on board this schooner and you know, Miguel, that you and the captain insisted on my coming back.”

“We go on deck!” cried the cook, now thoroughly alarmed by the uproar, which always increased.  He rushed up the ladder and Robert followed him, to be blown completely off his feet when he reached the deck.  But he snatched at the woodwork, held fast, and regained an upright position.  The captain stood not far away, holding to a rope, but he was so deeply engrossed in directing his men that he paid no attention to Robert.

The youth cleared the mist and spray from his eyes and took a comprehensive look.  The aspect of sea and sky was enough to strike almost any one with terror, but upon this occasion he was an exception.  He had never looked upon a wilder world, but in its very wildness lay his hope.  The icy spars from which he would slip to plunge to his death in the chilling sea were gone, and so was far Africa, and the slaver’s hunt.  He was not a seaman, his experience had been with lakes, but one could reason from lakes to the universal ocean, and he knew that the schooner was in a fight for life.  And involved in it was his fight for freedom.

The wind, cold as death, and sharp as a sword, blew out of the northeast, and the schooner, heeled far over, was driving fast before it, in spite of every effort of a capable captain and crew.  The ship rose and fell violently with the huge swells, and water that stung like an icy sleet swept over her continually.  Looking to the westward Robert saw something that caused his heart to throb violently.  It was a dim low line, but he knew it to be land.

What land it was he had no idea, nor did he at the moment care, but there lay freedom.  Rows of breakers opening their strong teeth for the ship might stretch between, but better the breakers than the slaver’s deck and the man hunt in the slimy African lagoons.  For him the icy wind was the breath of life, and he soon ceased to shiver.  But he became conscious of chattering teeth near him and he saw Miguel, his face a reproduction of terror in all its aspects.

“We go!” shouted the Portuguese.  “The storm drive the ship on the breakers and she break to pieces, and all of us lost!”

Robert’s fantastic spirit was again strong upon him.

“Then let us go!” he shouted back.  “Better this clean, cold coast than the fever swamps of Africa!  Hold fast, Miguel, and we’ll ride in together!”

The superstitious awe of the Portuguese deepened, and he drew away from Robert.  In the moment of terrible storm and approaching death this could be no mortal youth who showed not fear, but instead a joy that was near to exaltation.  Then and there he was convinced that when they had seized him and brought him aboard they had made their own doom certain.