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Many were the admiring glances bestowed upon her from the craft which were passed either going up or down the river for, being only in deep ballast trim, she towed light, and passed ahead of nearly all the inward-bound craft and at length a great bluff-bowed, deeply-laden barque was overtaken, the quarter-deck occupants of which appeared to manifest not only admiration but quite a surprising amount of curiosity as the two vessels closed.
The water was smooth in the channel through which we were passing, but when we got to the end of it, we found the surface rippled over with waves, which, although small, threatened to be dangerous to our deeply-laden little craft. I proposed that we should, notwithstanding, endeavour to paddle up along the other side of the island, in case Ellen and her companions might have landed on it.
We calculated upon having the whole wealth of the French town, and the little French fleet converted into lawful prize-money. The deeply-laden, poop-encumbered brigs and schooners, so ungracefully down by the stern, we imagined to be full of treasure. Visions of gold glittered before our mind's eye.
At the first it seemed as though even this would be a dangerous task, for the wind blew hard in a contrary direction, and the deeply-laden boats began to be in peril of foundering. But as we stood watching them from the bank, and saw their jeopardy, and some were for recalling them and waiting, the Maid's voice suddenly rang forth in command: "Leave them alone, and hasten forward with the others.
At length, to my delight and that of all the crew, the last cask we had on board was filled with oil, and with a deeply-laden ship we commenced our homeward voyage. We encountered a heavy gale going round the Horn, but the old Juno weathered it bravely, though, as she strained a good deal, we had afterwards to keep the pumps going for an hour or so during each watch.
There was the affair of the "Bounty," for example: Bligh was one of the best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men; proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful weather, a deeply-laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an almost unknown ocean of his bravery, at the fight of Copenhagen, one of the most desperate ever fought, of which after Nelson he was the hero: he was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the "Bounty" mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open boat, with certain of his men who remained faithful to him, and ran away with the ship.
The Fortune entered without difficulty, but the deeply-laden Francis grounded midway in and had to wait several hours for the tide to float her. Listening to the talk of the crew, Bob heard them say they had come into the mouth of the Cape Fear River in Carolina.
He knew how soft was the snow when it began to melt in early spring, how the snow shoes sank deeply and became a burden to lift, how the sledge runners no longer slid along the surface, and the floundering dogs tired after half a day's journey; he thought how full the river was of jagged ice cakes in the spring, and how perilous was the passage of a deeply-laden canoe.
The ship held steadily on her way, and all that we could do was to follow her, with the wind smiting down upon us more fiercely every minute, while each succeeding wave, as it overtook us, curled its angry, hissing crest more menacingly above the stern of the deeply-laden boat.
The shores of New England had been, for several days, dimly descried by her passengers, through the gloomy mists that hung over the dreary and uncultivated tract of land towards which their prow was turned; but the heavy sea that dashed against the rocks, the ignorance of the captain and his crew with regard to the nature of the coast, and the crazy state of the deeply-laden vessel, had hitherto prevented their making the land.
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