No recommendation, however, on our part, nor any representation of the benefit we felt we had derived, could induce Miss Herbey to allay her sufferings in the same way.
At about eleven o'clock, the captain came up to me, and whispered in my ear,-- "Don't say a word, Mr.Kazallon; I do not want to raise false hopes, but I think I see a ship." It was as well that the captain had warned me; otherwise, I should have raised an involuntary shout of joy; as it was, I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my expressions of delight.
"Look behind to larboard," he continued in an undertone.
Affecting an indifference which I was far from feeling, I cast an anxious glance to that quarter of the horizon of which he spoke, and there, although mine is not a nautical eye, I could plainly distinguish the outline of a ship under sail.
Almost at the same moment the boatswain who happened to be looking in the same direction, raised the cry, "Ship ahoy!" Whether it was that no one believed it, or whether all energies were exhausted, certain it is that the announcement produced none of the effects that might have been expected.

Not a soul exhibited the slightest emotion, and it was only when the boatswain had several times sung out his tidings that all eyes turned to the horizon.

There, most undeniably, was the ship, and the question rose at once to the minds of all, and to the lips of many, "Would she see us ?" The sailors immediately began discussing the build of the vessel, and made all sorts of conjectures as to the direction she was taking.

Curtis was far more deliberate in his judgment.

After examining her attentively for some time, he said, "She is a brig running close upon the wind, on the starboard tack, If she keeps her course for a couple of hours, she will come right athwart our track." A couple of hours! The words sounded to our ears like a couple of centuries.