“And, according to you, Dick, the American coast ought not to be distant now.”

“It cannot be, Mrs. Weldon, and if anything astonishes me, it is not having made it yet.”

“Meanwhile,” continued Mrs. Weldon, “the ship has always followed the right course.”

“Always, since the wind settled in the northwest,” replied Dick Sand; “that is to say, since the day when we lost our unfortunate captain and his crew.  That was the 10th of February.  We are now on the 9th of March.  There have been then, twenty-seven since that.”

“But at that period what distance were we from the coast?” asked Mrs. Weldon.

“About four thousand five hundred miles, Mrs. Weldon.  If there are things about which I have more than a doubt, I can at least guarantee this figure within about twenty miles.”

“And what has been the ship’s speed?”

“On an average, a hundred and eighty miles a day since the wind freshened,” replied the novice.  “So, I am surprised at not being in sight of land.  And, what is still more extraordinary, is that we do not meet even a single one of those vessels which generally frequent these parts!”

“Could you not be deceived, Dick,” returned Mrs. Weldon, “in estimating the ‘Pilgrim’s’ speed?”

“No, Mrs. Weldon.  On that point I could not be mistaken.  The log has been thrown every half hour, and I have taken its indications very accurately.  Wait, I am going to have it thrown anew, and you will see that we are sailing at this moment at the rate of ten miles an hour, which would give us more than two hundred miles a day.”

Dick Sand called Tom, and gave him the order to throw the log, an operation to which the old black was now quite accustomed.

The log, firmly fastened to the end of the line, was brought and sent out.

Twenty-five fathoms were hardly unrolled, when the rope suddenly slackened between Tom’s hands.

“Ah!  Mr. Dick!” cried he.

“Well, Tom?”

“The rope has broken!”

“Broken!” cried Dick Sand.  “And the log is lost!”

Old Tom showed the end of the rope which remained in his hand.

It was only too true.  It was not the fastening which had failed.  The rope had broken in the middle.  And, nevertheless, that rope was of the first quality.  It must have been, then, that the strands of the rope at the point of rupture were singularly worn!  They were, in fact, and Dick Sand could tell that when he had the end of the rope in his hands!  But had they become so by use? was what the novice, become suspicious, asked himself.

However that was, the log was now lost, and Dick Sand had no longer any means of telling exactly the speed of his ship.  In the way of instruments, he only possessed one compass, and he did not know that its indications were false.

Mrs. Weldon saw him so saddened by this accident, that she did not wish to insist, and, with a very heavy heart, she retired into her cabin.