During the thirteen days which elapsed, from the 24th of February to the 9th of March, the state of the atmosphere did not change in any perceptible manner.  The sky was always loaded with heavy fogs.  For a few hours the wind went down, then it began to blow again with the same force.  Two or three times the barometer rose again, but its oscillation, comprising a dozen lines, was too sudden to announce a change of weather and a return of more manageable winds.  Besides the barometrical column fell again almost immediately, and nothing could inspire any hope of the end of that bad weather within a short period.

Terrible storms burst forth also, which very seriously disturbed Dick Sand.  Two or three times the lightning struck the waves only a few cable-lengths from the ship.  Then the rain fell in torrents, and made those whirlpools of half condensed vapors, which surrounded the “Pilgrim” with a thick mist.

For entire hours the man at the lookout saw nothing, and the ship sailed at random.

Even though the ship, although resting firmly on the waves, was horribly shaken, Mrs. Weldon, fortunately, supported this rolling and pitching without being incommoded.  But her little boy was very much tried, and she was obliged to give him all her care.

As to Cousin Benedict, he was no more sick than the American cockroaches which he made his society, and he passed his time in studying, as if he were quietly settled in his study in San Francisco.

Very fortunately, also, Tom and his companions found themselves little sensitive to sea-sickness, and they could continue to come to the young novice’s aid—­well accustomed, himself, to all those excessive movements of a ship which flies before the weather.

The “Pilgrim” ran rapidly under this reduced sail, and already Dick Sand foresaw that he would be obliged to reduce it again.  But he wished to hold out as long as it would be possible to do so without danger.  According to his reckoning, the coast ought to be no longer distant.  So they watched with care.  All the time the novice could hardly trust his companions’ eyes to discover the first indications of land.  In fact, no matter what good sight he may have, he who is not accustomed to interrogating the sea horizons is not skilful in distinguishing the first contours of a coast, above all in the middle of fogs.  So Dick Sand must watch himself, and he often climbed as far as the spars to see better.  But no sign yet of the American coast.

This astonished him, and Mrs. Weldon, by some words which escaped him, understood that astonishment.

It was the 9th of March.  The novice kept at the prow, sometimes observing the sea and the sky, sometimes looking at the “Pilgrim’s” masting, which began to strain under the force of the wind.

“You see nothing yet, Dick?” she asked him, at a moment when he had just left the long lookout.

“Nothing, Mrs. Weldon, nothing,” replied the novice; and meanwhile, the horizon seems to clear a little under this violent wind, which is going to blow still harder.”