This was at the moment when Judith and Hetty reached the centre of
the lake, and had lain down to endeavor to sleep in their drifting
canoe.
The night was calm, though so much obscured by clouds. The season
was not one of storms, and those which did occur in the month of
June, on that embedded water, though frequently violent were always
of short continuance. Nevertheless, there was the usual current
of heavy, damp night air, which, passing over the summits of the
trees, scarcely appeared to descend as low as the surface of the
glassy lake, but kept moving a short distance above it, saturated with
the humidity that constantly arose from the woods, and apparently
never proceeding far in any one direction. The currents were
influenced by the formation of the hills, as a matter of course, a
circumstance that rendered even fresh breezes baffling, and which
reduced the feebler efforts of the night air to be a sort of capricious
and fickle sighings of the woods. Several times the head of the
Ark pointed east, and once it was actually turned towards the south,
again; but, on the whole, it worked its way north; Hutter making
always a fair wind, if wind it could be called, his principal motive
appearing to keep in motion, in order to defeat any treacherous
design of his enemies.
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