Emmanuel Appadocca; or, Blighted Life, Volume 2 (of 2)

“O conspiracy! Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night When evils are most free?” Julius Cæsar.

The small cutter that was carrying Agnes and the other captives held her course towards the land.

It could not but occur to the priest and to his ward, unaccustomed as they were to encounter dangers, that their position was one which was in itself highly, if not imminently perilous. There they were, thrown in an open vessel on the ocean, and sent on a voyage which was to consist of three days’ or more beating up against the wind and the waves, while their little vessel was every moment subjected to the accidents of a very tedious and difficult navigation.

These thoughts were the more forcibly thrust upon the priest, when after the lapse of a day, and on the approach of night, it was to be perceived that no progress towards the land had been made. The little cutter had tossed about on the high billows, had tacked and re-tacked, still at the close of the day she was not much nearer the end of her voyage than when she was thrown off by the schooner. Under the influence of these thoughts, the priest lost much of his cheerful equanimity.