Once or twice, also, the barometer rising gave reason to fear that the wind might change point for point; that is to say, that it might pass to the east.  It would then be necessary to sail close to the wind!

A new anxiety for Dick Sand.  What should he do with a contrary wind?  Tack about?  But if he was obliged to come to that, what new delays and what risks of being thrown into the offing.

Happily those fears were not realized.  The wind, after shifting for several days, blowing sometimes from the north, sometimes from the south, settled definitely in the west.  But it was always a strong breeze, almost a gale, which strained the masting.

It was the 5th of April.  So, then, more than two months had already elapsed since the “Pilgrim” had left New Zealand.  For twenty days a contrary wind and long calms had retarded her course.  Then she was in a favorable condition to reach land rapidly.  Her speed must even have been very considerable during the tempest.  Dick Sand estimated its average at not less than two hundred miles a day!  How, then, had he not yet made the coast?  Did it flee before the “Pilgrim?” It was absolutely inexplicable.

And, nevertheless, no land was signaled, though one of the blacks kept watch constantly in the crossbars.

Dick Sand often ascended there himself.  There, with a telescope to his eyes, he sought to discover some appearance of mountains.  The Andes chain is very high.  It was there in the zone of the clouds that he must seek some peak, emerging from the vapors of the horizon.

Several times Tom and his companions were deceived by false indications of land.  They were only vapors of an odd form, which rose in the background.  It happened sometimes that these honest men were obstinate in their belief; but, after a certain time, they were forced to acknowledge that they had been dupes of an optical illusion.  The pretended land, moved away, changed form and finished by disappearing completely.

On the 6th of April there was no longer any doubt possible.

It was eight o’clock in the morning.  Dick Sand had just ascended into the bars.  At that moment the fogs were condensed under the first rays of the sun, and the horizon was pretty clearly defined.

From Dick Sand’s lips escaped at last the so long expected cry: 

“Land! land before us!”

At that cry every one ran on deck, little Jack, curious as folks are at that age, Mrs. Weldon, whose trials were going to cease with the landing, Tom and his companions, who were at last going to set foot again on the American continent, Cousin Benedict himself, who had great hope of picking up quite a rich collection of new insects for himself.

Negoro, alone, did not appear.

Each then saw what Dick Sand had seen, some very distinctly, others with the eyes of faith.  But on the part of the novice, so accustomed to observe sea horizons, there was no error possible, and an hour after, it must be allowed he was not deceived.