Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy онлайн

30 страница из 52

Sea and sky were around me; not a sail was in sight, and nothing living was near, save a few petrels tripping over the water, alongside of the fatal schooner.

Had I slept all night, and was this the dawn of a new day? Had I slept all day, and was this the approach of another night? I devoutly hoped not, as I most dreaded night upon the ocean; but the gradual sinking of the sun, and the increasing redness of the sky, ere long informed me that the time was evening. I now knew the west, and turned my haggard eyes to the south, for there the land and my home lay; but still the envious wind, though lighter now seemed to blow from that quarter.

Oh! how deeply and earnestly, by thoughts unuttered, I prayed in my heart that it would change and blow toward the shore—any shore—or any part of the coast of England, and bring me so near that I might have a chance of escape of life and preservation by swimming—by putting to the test that skill and those powers of activity I had acquired at Eton, in the waters of the Thames.