That was only an island!" said he.
"An island, Dick! but what?" asked Mrs. Weldon.
"The chart will tell us," replied the novice. And running to his berth, he brought the ship's chart.
"There, Mrs. Weldon, there!" said he.
"That land which we have seen, it can only be this point, lost in the middle of the Pacific!
It can only be the Isle of Paques; there is no other in these parts."
"And we have already left it behind?" asked Mrs. Weldon.
"Yes, well to the windward of us." Mrs. Weldon looked attentively at the Isle of Paques, which only formed an imperceptible point on the chart.
"And at what distance is it from the American coast?"
"Thirty-five degrees."
"Which makes——"
"About two thousand miles."
"But then the
'Pilgrim' has not sailed, if we are still so far from the continent?"
"Mrs. Weldon," replied Dick Sand, who passed his hand over his forehead for a moment, as if to concentrate his ideas,
"I do not know—I cannot explain this incredible delay! No! I cannot—unless the indications of the compass have been false? But that island can only be the Isle of Paques, because we have been obliged to scud before the wind to the northeast, and we must thank Heaven, which has permitted me to mark our position!
Yes, it is still two thousand miles from the coast!
I know, at last, where the tempest has blown us, and, if it abates, we shall be able to land on the American continent with some chance of safety.
Now, at least, our ship is no longer lost on the immensity of the Pacific!"
This confidence, shown by the young novice, was shared by all those who heard him speak.
Mrs. Weldon, herself, gave way to it.
It seemed, indeed, that these poor people were at the end of their troubles, and that the
"Pilgrim," being to the windward of her port, had only to wait for the open sea to enter it!
The Isle of Paques—by its true name Vai-Hon—discovered by David in 1686, visited by Cook and Laperouse, is situated 27° south latitude and 112° east longitude.
If the schooner had been thus led more than fifteen degrees to the north, that was evidently due to that tempest from the southwest, before which it had been obliged to scud.
Then the
"Pilgrim" was still two thousand miles from the coast.
However, under the impetus of that wind which blew like thunder, it must, in less than ten days, reach some point of the coast of South America.
But could they not hope, as the novice had said, that the weather would become more manageable, and that it would be possible to set some sail, when they should make the land?
It was still Dick Sand's hope. He said to himself that this hurricane, which had lasted so many days, would end perhaps by "killing itself."
And now that, thanks to the appearance of the Isle of Paques, he knew exactly his position, he had reason to believe that, once master of his vessel again, he would know how to lead her to a safe place.
Yes! to have had knowledge of that isolated point in the middle of the sea, as by a providential favor, that had restored confidence to Dick Sand; if he was going all the time at the caprice of a hurricane, which he could not subdue, at least, he was no longer going quite blindfold.
Besides, the "Pilgrim," well-built and rigged, had suffered little during those rude attacks of the tempest.
Her damages reduced themselves to the loss of the top-sail and the foretop-mast stay-sail—a loss which it would be easy to repair.
Not a drop of water had penetrated through the well-stanched seams of the hull and the deck.
The pumps were perfectly free.
In this respect there was nothing to fear.
There was, then, this interminable hurricane, whose fury nothing seemed able to moderate.
If, in a certain measure, Dick Sand could put his ship in a condition to struggle against the violent storm, he could not order that wind to moderate, those waves to be still, that sky to become serene again. On board, if he was "master after God," outside the ship, God alone commanded the winds and the waves. * * * * *
CHAPTER XIII.
LAND! LAND!
Meanwhile, that confidence with which Dick Sand's heart filled instinctively, was going to be partly justified.
The next day, March 27th, the column of mercury rose in the barometrical tube.
The oscillation was neither sudden nor considerable—a few lines only—but the progression seemed likely to continue.
The tempest was evidently going to enter its decreasing period, and, if the sea did remain excessively rough, they could tell that the wind was going down, veering slightly to the west.
Dick Sand could not yet think of using any sail.
The smallest sail would be carried away.
However, he hoped that twenty-four hours would not elapse before it would be possible for him to rig a storm-jib.
During the night, in fact, the wind went down quite noticeably, if they compared it to what it had been till then, and the ship was less tossed by those violent rollings which had threatened to break her in pieces.
The passengers began to appear on deck again.