At the suggestion of the boatswain, who hinted at the necessity of having cleared decks, Captain de Haldimar had prevailed on his unfortunate relatives to retire to the small cabin arranged for their reception; and here they were attended by an aged female, who had long followed the fortunes of the crew, and acted in the twofold character of laundress and sempstress.  He himself, with Sir Everard, continued on deck watching the progress of the vessel with an anxiety that became more intense at each succeeding hour.  Hitherto their course had been unimpeded, save by the obstacles already enumerated; and they had now, at about an hour before dawn, gained a point that promised a speedy termination to their dangers and perplexities.  Before them lay a reach in the river, enveloped in more than ordinary gloom, produced by the continuous weaving of the tops of the overhanging trees; and in the perspective, a gleam of relieving light, denoting the near vicinity of the lake that lay at the opposite extremity of the Sinclair, whose name it also bore.  This was the narrowest part of the river; and so approximate were its shores, that the vessel in her course could not fail to come in contact both with the obtruding foliage of the forest and the dense bullrushes skirting the edge of either bank.

“If we get safe through this here place,” said the boatswain, in a rough whisper to his anxious and attentive auditors,” I think as how I’ll venture to answer for the craft.  I can see daylight dancing upon the lake already.  Ten minutes more and she will be there.”  Then turning to the man at the helm,—­“Keep her in the centre of the stream, Jim.  Don’t you see you’re hugging the weather shore?”

“It would take the devil himself to tell which is the centre,” growled the sailor, in the same suppressed tone.  “One might steer with one’s eyes shut in such a queer place as this and never be no worser off than with them open.”

“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