"Very true. I think I will leave Peaks to look out for the absentees. Are you sure the steamer goes on Saturday?"
"Yes, sir; here is the time table," replied Paul, producing a paper he had obtained at Mr. Bennett's. "Dampskibet Kronprindsesse Louise."
"That's Norwegian, Paul. Can you read it?" laughed Mr. Lowington.
"A little. 'Hver Löverday;' that means on Saturday; 'at 6 fm.,' which is early in the morning. She arrives at Gottenburg about midnight."
"That will answer our purpose very well. We shall get under way early in the morning, Paul."
"Then I will go on board of the yacht to-night, sir; but you need not wait for me, for I think I can catch you if you should get two or three hours the start of me. I haven't used my balloon jib yet, and am rather anxious to do so."
After a long conversation with Mrs. Blacklock, in which he assured her again that nothing but firmness on her part could save her son from ruin, the principal left the hotel, and returned to the ship. In the evening Mr. and Mrs. Kendall went on board of the Grace. On the following morning, the wind being a little north of west, the signal for sailing was displayed on board of the Young America, and at six o'clock the fleet were under way. The weather was beautiful, and the fresh breeze enabled all the vessels to log eight knots an hour, which brought them fairly into the Skager Rack early in the afternoon.
"I suppose we are off the coast of Sweden now," said Norwood, as he glanced at the distant hills on the left.
"The pilot said Frederikshald was in this direction," replied Captain Lincoln, pointing to the shore. "It is at the head of a small fjord, and is near the line between Norway and Sweden."
"Charles XII. was killed there--wasn't he?"
"That's the place. The fortress of Frederiksteen is there, on a perpendicular rock four hundred feet high."
"I wish we went nearer to the Swedish coast," added Norwood.
"We shall see enough of it before we leave the Baltic," said Lincoln.
"Probably we shall not care to see it after we have been looking at it a week."
"According to the chart, this part of the coast is fringed with islands, but they don't look so bare and desolate as those of Norway. I had an idea that everything on this side of the ocean was entirely different from what we see on our side," added the captain.