shall ware every
watch, and then we shall be safe against all dangers, but those of the drift,
which in a light low craft like this, without top hamper, will be next to
nothing. Leave it all to me, serjeant, and I pledge you the character of Charles
Cap, that all will go well.«
    Serjeant Dunham was fain to yield. He had great confidence in his
connection's professional skill, and hoped that he would take such care of the
cutter as would amply justify his good opinion. On the other hand, as distrust
like love, grows by what it feeds on, he entertained so much apprehension of
treachery, that he was quite willing any one but Jasper should, just then, have
the control of the fate of the whole party. Truth, moreover, compels us to admit
another motive. The particular duty on which he was now sent, should have been
confided to a commissioned officer, of right, and Major Duncan had excited a
good deal of discontent among the subalterns of the garrison, by having confided
it to one of the Serjeant's humble station. To return, without having even
reached the point of destination, therefore, the latter felt would be a failure
from which he was not likely soon to recover, and the measure would at once be
the means of placing a superior in his shoes.
 

                                  Chapter XVI

 »Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
 Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
 Calm or convulsed - in breeze, or gale, or storm,
 Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
 Dark heaving; - boundless, endless and sublime -
 The image of Eternity; the throne
 Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
 The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
 Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.«
                                 Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, IV.clxxxiii.
 
As the day advanced, the portion of the inmates of the vessel that had the
liberty of doing so, appeared on deck. As yet the sea was not very high, from
which it was inferred that the cutter was still under the lee of the islands,
but it was apparent to all who understood the lake, that they were about to
experience one of the heavy autumnal gales of that region. Land was nowhere
visible, and the horizon, on every side, exhibited that gloomy void, which lends
to all views on vast bodies of water, the sublimity of mystery. The swells, or
as landsmen term them, the waves, were short and curling,