The long white wake showed clearly across the waters.

The captain never left the deck, but continued to examine the horizon with his powerful glasses.
Robert, quick to deduce, believed that they were in some part of the sea frequented by ships in ordinary times and that the captain must be reckoning on the probability of seeing a vessel in the course of the night.

His whole manner showed it, and the lad's own interest became so great that he lost all thought of going down to his cabin.

Unless force intervened he would stay there and see what was going to happen, because he felt in every fiber that something would surely occur.
An hour, two hours passed.

The schooner went swiftly on toward the south, the wind singing merrily through the ropes and among the sails.
The captain walked back and forth in a narrow space, circling the entire horizon with his glasses at intervals seldom more than five minutes apart.