Chapter 85

_ARETHUSA is discovered, dusting_

ARETHUSA. Ten months and a week to-day! Now for a new mark. Since the last, the sun has set and risen over the fields and the pleasant trees at home, and on Kit's lone ship and the empty sea. Perhaps it blew, perhaps rained; (_at the chart_) perhaps he was far up here to the nor'ard, where the icebergs sail; perhaps at anchor among these wild islands of the snakes and buccaneers. O, you big chart, if I could see him sailing on you! North and South Atlantic; such a weary sight of water and no land; never an island for the poor lad to land upon. But still God's there. (_She takes down the telescope to dust it._) Father's spy-glass again; and my poor Kit perhaps with such another, sweeping the great deep!