Thus for a long time he sat, alternately hoping and desponding, at every play of those sails in the sunlight.  The calm of the water showed him that, even if the vessel were coming up, he could not expect any very rapid progress.  There was now no wind, and the surface of the water was perfectly unruffled.  Besides, he knew that the tide was falling rapidly.  How, then, could he expect that the vessel could come any nearer, even if she were trying to?  Thoughts like these at last made him only anxious to keep the vessel in sight.  If her destination lay up the bay, she would probably anchor; if it lay down the bay, she would drift with the tide.  He thought, then, that if she only would remain in sight, it would be a sufficient proof of her course.

Thus he sat, watching and waiting, with all his soul intent upon those flashing sails, and all his thoughts taken up with the question as to the course of that solitary bark.  It seemed a long time to him, in his suspense; but suspense always makes time seem long.  At last, however, even though he hoped so persistently for the best, his hope began to die within him.  Fainter and fainter grew those sails; at intervals rarer and rarer did their flash come to his eyes, until at length the sight of them was lost altogether, and nothing met his eyes but the gloomy gray of the fog cloud on the far horizon.

Even after he had lost hope, and become convinced that she was gone, Tom sat there for a long time, in a fixed attitude, looking at that one spot.  He would have sat there longer, but suddenly there came to his ears a peculiar sound, which made him start to his feet in a moment, and filled him with a new excitement.

He listened.

The sound came again.

A flush of joy spread over his face, his heart beat faster and faster, and he listened as though he could scarce believe his senses.

As he listened, the sounds came again, and this time much louder.

There was now no mistake about it.  It was a regular boat, which Tom knew well to be the peculiar sound made by the floats of a steamer’s paddles.  He had often heard it.  He had but recently heard it, when the revenue steamer was approaching the Antelope, and again during the foggy night, when the whistle roused them, and the same beat of the paddles came over the midnight waters.

And now, too, he heard it.

He gave a shout of joy, and started off to catch sight of her.

For a few paces only he ran, and then stopped.

He was puzzled.  He did not know in which direction it was best to go.  He was at the west end of the island, but could not make out very well the direction of the sounds.  He tried to think whether the steamer would pass the island on the north side or the south.  He did not know, but it seemed to him that she would certainly go to the north of it.  There was no time to be lost, and standing there to listen did not seem to be of any use, even if his impatience had allowed him to do so.  Accordingly he hurried back by the way that he had come along the north side of the island.