There had been dark nights and foggy days in which she might well have passed them, so they reasoned.

But Derry Duck said there was no moving the captain, and grumblers would do best to "keep their tongues between their teeth." The mail-bag of the Molly had gone home on board one of the captured vessels, and it was a pleasant thought to Blair that his dear mother would soon feel almost as if she heard the voice of her son at her side.
Derry's little daughter too would receive her letter, and Blair tried to picture her joy as she held this treasure in her hands.
Derry moved about in his usual way, but was inclined to avoid Blair since the night when he had given the boy his confidence.

Blair often found it hard to believe that those gentle, tender tones had come from Derry's great closely shut mouth, and that those snapping eyes had softened almost to tears as he spoke of his darling child.
Sunday on board the Molly was precisely like other days, as far as the movements and occupations of the men were concerned.

To Blair there was ever a more solemn stillness over the sea, and a more imposing grandeur in the wide canopy of the overhanging sky.

One great temple it seemed to him, the sunlit waves its shining floor, the firmament its arching roof, and the unseen angels the countless worshippers, singing, "Praise and glory and honor be unto the name of God most high." In this adoring song Blair heartily joined, and he longed and prayed for the time to come when on every white-winged ship there should be gathered the servants of the Lord of sabaoth, rejoicing to call upon his holy name and give him glory for all his wondrous works.
Absorbed in such thoughts as these, Blair was leaning over the side of the ship one Sunday morning.