one be without a friend, and see what will happen!

Passing the island of Pico, after the rigging was mended, the _Spray_
stretched across to leeward of the island of St. Michael's, which she
was up with early on the morning of July 26, the wind blowing hard.
Later in the day she passed the Prince of Monaco's fine steam-yacht
bound to Fayal, where, on a previous voyage, the prince had slipped
his cables to "escape a reception" which the padres of the island
wished to give him. Why he so dreaded the "ovation" I could not make
out. At Horta they did not know. Since reaching the islands I had
lived most luxuriously on fresh bread, butter, vegetables, and fruits
of all kinds. Plums seemed the most plentiful on the _Spray_, and
these I ate without stint. I had also a Pico white cheese that General
Manning, the American consul-general, had given me, which I supposed
was to be eaten, and of this I partook with the plums. Alas! by
night-time I was doubled up with cramps. The wind, which was already a
smart breeze, was increasing somewhat, with a heavy sky to the
sou'west. Reefs had been turned out, and I must turn them in again
somehow. Between cramps I got the mainsail down, hauled out the
earings as best I could, and tied away point by point, in the double
reef. There being sea-room, I should, in strict prudence, have made
all snug and gone down at once to my cabin. I am a careful man at sea,
but this night, in the coming storm, I swayed up my sails, which,
reefed though they were, were still too much in such heavy weather;
and I saw to it that the sheets were securely belayed. In a word, I
should have laid to, but did not. I gave her the double-reefed
mainsail and whole jib instead, and set her on her course. Then I went
below, and threw myself upon the cabin floor in great pain. How long I
lay there I could not tell, for I became delirious. When I came to, as
I thought, from my swoon, I realized that the sloop was plunging into
a heavy sea, and looking out of the companionway, to my amazement I
saw a tall man at the helm. His rigid hand, grasping the spokes of the
wheel, held them as in a vise. One may imagine my astonishment. His
rig was that of a foreign sailor, and the large red cap he wore was
cockbilled over his left ear, and all was set off with shaggy black
whiskers. He would have been taken for a pirate in any part of the
world. While I gazed upon his threatening aspect I forgot the storm,
and wondered if he had co