of them illiterate men--had entered up
the log slate in such an extraordinary manner that, so far as the dead
reckoning was concerned, the information was not of the slightest use to
me. Fortunately for my peace of mind the atmosphere was clear, and I
was able to get sights during the forenoon which gave me the ship's
longitude; while, a little later on, a meridian altitude of the sun
fixed our latitude for us. Then, for nearly thirty hours, we found
ourselves enveloped in one of the densest fogs I ever experienced, with
light, baffling variable winds that made of our wake a continual zigzag,
winding up with three days of thoroughly foul weather--a whole gale of
wind from the north-east--during the greater part of which we lay hove-
to under close-reefed fore and main topsails, with our head to the
south-east. Then the weather cleared and moderated; the wind gradually
worked round, first to east, and then to south-east; and at length I
found the ship laying up, close-hauled under all plain sail, for the
spot where, according to my reckoning, Saint Paul ought to be. I was
now especially anxious to make that island, for the weather of the past
three or four days had been of such a character as to baffle the most
experienced of navigators, and I confess that I was beginning to feel
rather more than a trifle nervous. The island, however, hove into view
at the precise moment and in the precise quarter that it ought to do if
my reckoning happened to be correct; and this test and verification of
the accuracy of my working served to completely re-establish my
confidence in myself, so that, from that time onward, I never
experienced the least anxiety. I felt that so long as I could get
tolerably regular sights of the sun, moon, or stars I was not at all
likely to go wrong.

But before the island of Saint Paul had climbed up over the horizon that
stretched athwart our bows, I had become aware of a certain matter that,
while it struck me as being somewhat peculiar, seemed to bear no further
significance for me.

One of the first persons among the emigrant passengers aboard the
_Mercury_ to attract my attention was a tall, thin, long-haired, sickly-
looking man, of about thirty years of age, clad in a suit of rusty
black, whose appearance and manner generally suggested to me the idea
that he must be by profession a schoolmaster. There was a certain air
of exaggerated earnestness of demeanour about him, and a wildness of
e