low Ahead."
Gradually the ship crept north, gaining way as the engines increased
their stroke and the full body of the ebb tide made its volume felt.
Round swung the _Kansas_ to the west, just as the sun cleared the
highest peak of the unknown mountains. Courtenay had not forgotten his
bearings. Although he had men using the lead constantly, he did not
need their help. Once clear of the reefs which he had seen when the
vessel first ran into the inlet, he made straight for the pillar rock,
and rather raised the hair of the man at the wheel, not to mention most
of the people on deck, by the nearness of his approach to that solitary
buoy set in the midst of a broken sea. How good it was to feel the
steady thrust of the pistons, the long roll of the ship over the swell!
And then, when Elsie brought him his breakfast, and stood by his side
as he watched the set of the tide with unwavering eyes, what a joy that
was, to listen to her story of the night's wanderings, and to know
that, with God's help, their Odyssey was nearing its end!

For every sailor is a fatalist, and in the unwritten code of the sea
the law runs that once a ship has undergone her supreme trial she has
the freedom of the great highway for that voyage, though she girdle the
earth ere the dock gates open.

But best of all was it to hear Elsie tell how Dr. Christobal had handed
her a bulky packet, in which she found Courtenay's words of farewell,
together with those wonderful letters which fate had held back from her
twice already. They were only glowing epistles from the hundreds of
passengers on the _Florida_, but six of them were proposals from
enthusiastic ladies, all well dowered, and eager to give their charms
and their cash to the safe keeping of the man who had saved their
lives. It was with reference to some joking comment by Courtenay on
these missives that his sister wrote to congratulate him on having
escaped matrimony under such conditions. Elsie, brimful of high
spirits, amused herself by teasing him with nice phrases culled from
each of the six.

Long before noon the _Kansas_ cleared White Horse Island. There was a
ticklish hour while Courtenay and Boyle looked for the shoal. When its
long, low sandspit was revealed by the falling tide, the ship took
thought of her agony there, and traversed those treacherous waters with
due reverence. Thenceforth, the run was due south until eight bells,
when, for the second time within a fortnight