In this manner did the night pass, in weariness and anxiety.  Little was said, and for hours scarce a limb was moved, in the group that clustered around the mess-chest.  As the signs of day appeared, however, every faculty was keenly awake, to catch the first signs of what they had to hope, or the first certainty of what they had to fear.

The surface of the ocean was still smooth, though the long swells in which the element was heaving and setting, sufficiently indicated that the raft had floated far from the land.  This fact was rendered sure, when the light, which soon appeared along the eastern margin of the narrow view, was shed gradually over the whole horizon.  Nothing was at first visible, but one gloomy and vacant waste of water.  But a cry of joy from Seadrift, whose senses had long been practised in ocean sights, soon drew all eyes in the direction opposite to that of the rising sun, and it was not long before all on the low raft had a view of the snowy surfaces of a ship’s sails, as the glow of morning touched the canvas.

“It is the Frenchman!” said the free-trader.  “He is charitably looking for the wreck of his late enemy!”

“It may be so, for our fate can be no secret to him;” was the answer of Ludlow.  “Unhappily, we had run some distance from the anchorage, before the flames broke out.  Truly, those with whom we so lately struggled for life, are bent on a duty of humanity.”

“Ah, yonder is his crippled consort!—­to leeward many a league.  The gay bird has been too sadly stripped of its plumage, to fly so near the wind!  This is man’s fortune!  He uses his power, at one moment, to destroy the very means that become necessary to his safety, the next.”

“And what think you of our hopes?” asked Alida, searching in the countenance of Ludlow a clue to their fate.  “Does the stranger move in a direction favorable to our wishes?”

Neither Ludlow nor the Skimmer replied.  Both regarded the frigate intently, and then, as objects became more distinct, both answered, by a common impulse, that the ship was steering directly towards them.  The declaration excited general hope, and even the negress was no longer restrained by her situation from expressing her joy in vociferous exclamations of delight.

A few minutes of active and ready exertion succeeded.  A light boom was unlashed from the raft, and raised on its end, supporting a little signal, made of the handkerchiefs of the party, which fluttered in the light breeze, at the elevation of some twenty feet above the surface of the water.  After this precaution was observed, they were obliged to await the result in such patience as they could assume.  Minute passed after minute, and, at each moment, the form and proportions of the ship became more distinct, until all the mariners of the party declared they could distinguish men on her yards.  A cannon would have readily sent its shot from the ship to the raft, and yet no sign betrayed the consciousness of those in the former of the proximity of the latter.