up
out of his engine-room and shouted something to Peterson, who
methodically drew out his pipe and made ready for a smoke.

"It's no use going any farther," explained Williams when I came up.
"That intake's gone wrong again, and she's got sand all through her.
It's a crime to see her cut herself all to pieces this way. We've just
got to stop and clean her up, that's all, and fix the job right--ought
to have done it back there before we started in."

"How long will it take, Williams?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know, sir. More than this afternoon, sure."

"That's too bad," said I, with a fair imitation of regret. "We had
expected to make Manning Island by night."

"Yes, it is too bad, but it's better to stop than ruin her, isn't it,
sir?"

"Certainly it is, and I quite approve your judgment. But I presume we
can go a little way yet, until we find a good berth somewhere? There's
a deep channel comes in from the left, just ahead, and I think if we
move on half a mile or so, we can get water enough to float even at
low tide, and at the same time be out of sight of any boats passing in
the lower part of the bay."

"Oh, yes, sir, we can get that far," said the engineer. Peterson was
full of gloom, and though he thought nothing less than that we were
going to be kept here a month, as one more event in a trip already
unlucky enough, he gave the wheel to our Cajun pilot, and we crawled
on around the head of a long point that came out into the bay. Here we
could not see Manning Island, and were out of sight from most of the
bay, so that, once more, the feeling of remoteness, aloofness, came
upon me.

Not that it did me any present good. I despatched L'Olonnois as
messenger to the ladies, telling them the cause of our delay, and
explaining how difficult it was to say just when we would get in to
the island; and then I betook myself to gloomy pacing up and down what
restricted part of the deck I felt free for my own use. I wearied of
it soon, and went to my cabin, trying to read.

At first I undertook one of the modern novels which had been
recommended by my bookseller, but I found myself unable to get on with
it, and standing before my shelves took down one volume after another
of philosophers who once were wont to comfort me--men with brains,
thinking men who had done something in the world beside buying yachts
and country houses. My eye caught a page which earlier I had turned
down, and I read again:

"Trust thyself;