“Steady her helm, steady,” rejoined Mullins, “it’s as dark as pitch, to be sure, but the passage is straight as an arrow, and with a steady helm you can’t miss it.  Make for the light ahead.”

“Abaft there!” hurriedly and loudly shouted the man on the look-out at the bows, “there’s a tree lying across the river, and we’re just upon it.”

While he yet spoke, and before the boatswain could give such instructions as the emergency required, the vessel suddenly struck against the obstacle in question; but the concussion was not of the violent nature that might have been anticipated.  The course of the schooner, at no one period particularly rapid, had been considerably checked since her entrance into the gloomy arch, in the centre of which her present accident had occurred; so that it was without immediate injury to her hull and spars she had been thus suddenly brought to.  But this was not the most alarming part of the affair.  Captain de Haldimar and Sir Everard both recollected, that, in making the same passage, not forty-eight hours previously, they had encountered no obstacle of the kind, and a misgiving of danger rose simultaneously to the hearts of each.  It was, however, a thing of too common occurrence in these countries, where storm and tempest were so prevalent and partial, to create more than a mere temporary alarm; for it was quite as probable the barrier had been interposed by some fitful outburst of Nature, as that it arose from design on the part of their enemies:  and when the vessel had continued stationary for some minutes, without the prepared and expectant crew discovering the slightest indication of attack, the former impression was preserved by the officers—­at least avowedly to those around.

“Bear a hand, my lads, and cut away,” at length ordered the boatswain, in a low but clear tone; “half a dozen at each end of the stick, and we shall soon clear a passage for the craft.”

A dozen sailors grasped their axes, and hastened forward to execute the command.  They sprang lightly from the entangled bows of the schooner, and diverging in equal numbers moved to either extremity of the fallen tree.

“This is sailing through the heart of the American forest with a vengeance,” muttered Mullins, whose annoyance at their detention was strongly manifested as he paced up and down the deck.  “Shiver my topsails, if it isn’t bad enough to clear the Sinclair at any time, much more so when one’s running for one’s life, and not a whisper’s length from one’s enemies.  Do you know, Captain,” abruptly checking his movement, and familiarly placing his hand on the shoulder of De Haldimar, “the last time we sailed through this very reach I couldn’t help telling poor Captain Danvers, God rest his soul, what a nice spot it was for an Ingian ambuscade, if they had only gumption enough to think of it.”

“Hark!” said the officer, whose heart, eye, and ear were painfully on the alert, “what rustling is that we hear overhead?”