Philip replied, trying to treat lightly the most important worry that now pressed on him, "but no great distance from land, I'm somehow inclined to think. A steamer, or something, may pick us up any hour."
"But perhaps every hour we are slipping out to sea all the farther?"
"Let us hope not. O, no! I'm sure not such bad luck as that. I—I don't think, Gerald," he added more seriously, "that you and I have been—carried through last night—to be put in worse trouble much longer. Keep up a good heart, like the brave fellow you are! We have water and biscuit enough for the time we shall need them, I'm sure." And he remembered gratefully Captain Widgins and poor Eversham's forethought. "We're drifting along the coast somewhere; we shall know before long."
"O, it has been terrible!" exclaimed Gerald, piteously. "If we only knew any thing of the others on the steamer—or about papa, or what the people on shore think about us—or how any thing is to end for us!"
"We'll know all that in good time, depend on it."
He spoke confidently; but the uncertainty
