"But, I tell you what I think.

Let us run before the wind.

It'll be sure to bring us somewhere, at all events, in the end!" "Aye, that it would, sure-ly, Master Bob," cried Dick, surprised at the other's cleverness.

"I declare I never as much as thought o' that!" Thereupon, they wore the little cutter round, she having been previously going like a crab sideways, which fully accounted for the lively motion that had aroused them; and, Bob having stationed himself at the helm, which he had put hard over, Dick mounted up on the fo'c's'le to act as look-out, in case they should run against anything in the semi-darkness around them, or, more happily still, come in sight of land.
They had not long occupied their respective positions, when Bob's attention was attracted by a cry of alarm from his companion in the bows.
"Lawks a mussy!" yelled out Dick in accents of unfeigned terror.

"I sees a white ghostess a-flying down on us, with big wings like a h'angel!" "Nonsense, Dick!" cried Bob from aft, trying to peer ahead under the belly of the sail as he was sitting to leeward.