308 VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA CHAP, sieur St Arnaud encountered this change. The ^^' wind blew from its dark quarter. Every hour Marshal -^yas Carrying the Marshal farther and farther into Bt Ai-naud -^ <=> the centre of the inhospitable sea, farther and without the farther from the English fleet, farther and farther English. fj^QYn Lord Eaglan. If he went on, there was no junction to look for except at an imaginary point His anxiety, marked with a pencil on the charts, but having no existence in the material world ; and from the wind and angry waves, no less than from his own fast-cooling thoughts, he began to receive a dis- tressing sense of his isolation. The struggle in his mind was painful, but it came to an end. ' I
- am nearly twenty leagues,' writes the Marshal,
on the evening of the Gth, to Lord Eaglan — ' I ' am nearly twenty leagues north-east of Baljik,
- separated from the Euglish fleet, and from the
' part of my own convoy which was to sail with ' the convoy of the English fleet. Admiral Dun- ' das's last letter being worded conditionally, so ' far as concerns his sailing this morning, I am ' not sure of not seeing increased, in great propor- ' tions, the distance which separates me from you, ' and then there is reason to fear circumstances ' of wind or sea which would render our junc- ' tion difficult, and might compromise everything H,,3i,, 'definitively. In this painful situation I decide
- ■■• ' to invite Admiral Hamelin (on his declaration
- that he cannot wait where he is) to return to
' meet the fleets and the convoy.' So the Mar- which scientific men have applied tlieir minds ; but whether, as yet, with success, I cannot say.
