Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/240

 was Nelson never knew, for the destroyer was far away and seemed to be firing at the horizon. By afternoon staring across the water at the nearest transport palled and even the lookouts slouched despondently at their stations and the watch officers yawned behind their hands and seemed to be asking of the gray skies if it was for this that they had left their cosy firesides! Another night and they were looking for the landfall. More than once on that voyage Nelson's thoughts had dwelt on the events of that tragic night, now almost eleven months ago when the Jonas Clinton had met her fate and he had last seen his father. Doubtless the Gyandotte, since leaving Queenstown, had passed within a hundred miles of the spot, and for all he knew some of the wreckage they had sighted might have been from the schooner. Wind and current play strange tricks with flotsam. Doubtless his nearness to the Clinton's grave accounted for the fact that his father was a great deal in his mind just then. He still managed to cling to the conviction that Captain Troy was alive, although as time passed and no word nor sign reached him the conviction grew weaker. But he had not yet given up hope. Perhaps so long as positive proof was wanting he never would. 215