The canoe moved more rapidly as the wind came now with its full force over the distant woods and hills, and though it was but a light southerly breeze, the broad sail impelled the taper vessel swiftly.  Reclining in the stern, Felix lost all consciousness of aught but that he was pleasantly borne along.  His eyes were not closed, and he was aware of the canoe, the Lake, the sunshine, and the sky, and yet he was asleep.  Physically awake, he mentally slumbered.  It was rest.  After the misery, exertion, and excitement of the last fortnight it was rest, intense rest for body and mind.  The pressure of the water against the handle of the rudder-paddle, the slight vibration of the wood, as the bubbles rushed by beneath, alone perhaps kept him from really falling asleep.  This was something which could not be left to itself; it must be firmly grasped, and that effort restrained his drowsiness.

Three hours passed.  The shore was twelve or fifteen miles behind, and looked like a blue cloud, for the summer haze hid the hills, more than would have been the case in clearer weather.

Another hour, and at last Felix, awakening from his slumberous condition, looked round and saw nothing but the waves.  The shore he had left had entirely disappeared, gone down; if there were land more lofty on either hand, the haze concealed it.  He looked again; he could scarcely comprehend it.  He knew the Lake was very wide, but it had never occurred to him that he might possibly sail out of sight of land.  This, then was why the mariners would not quit the islands; they feared the open water.  He stood up and swept the horizon carefully, shading his eyes with his hand; there was nothing but a mist at the horizon.  He was alone with the sun, the sky, and the Lake.  He could not surely have sailed into the ocean without knowing it?  He sat down, dipped his hand overboard and tasted the drops that adhered; the water was pure and sweet, warm from the summer sunshine.

There was not so much as a swift in the upper sky; nothing but slender filaments of white cloud.  No swallows glided over the surface of the water.  If there were fishes he could not see them through the waves, which were here much larger; sufficiently large, though the wind was light, to make his canoe rise and fall with their regular rolling.  To see fishes a calm surface is necessary, and, like other creatures, they haunt the shallows and the shore.  Never had he felt alone like this in the depths of the farthest forest he had penetrated.  Had he contemplated beforehand the possibility of passing out of sight of land, when he found that the canoe had arrived he would probably have been alarmed and anxious for his safety.  But thus stumbling drowsily into the solitude of the vast Lake, he was so astounded with his own discovery, so absorbed in thinking of the immense expanse, that the idea of danger did not occur to him.