from Cape Haytien, and six hundred from the island of
Saint Thomas. This was particularly vexatious, because Captain
Leicester considered that, had the breeze continued fresh and favourable
for only twenty-four hours longer, it would in all probability have run
him fairly into the North-East trades, and he would then have been able
to calculate the duration of the remainder of the voyage with almost
mathematical exactness, and, what was still more to the purpose, would
have been sure of a breeze, and that a fair one, for the remainder of
the way.

However, there was no help for it, they had to take the wind and weather
as it came, and the crew had a busy time of it "box-hauling" the yards,
now this way, now that; trimming the sails to every passing breath of
the capricious air, and, after all their trouble, accomplishing only
some half-a-dozen miles during the whole day.

On the next day it was the same, excepting that the proceedings were
varied by a tremendously heavy thunder-storm, followed by, instead of
the wind which Captain Leicester so earnestly hoped for, a perfect
deluge of rain, which lasted for rather more than an hour. It was a
regular tropical downpour; the water descended, not in separate detached
drops, but in _sheets_, which splashed down on the decks as if from a
cataract. Advantage was taken of this copious downfall of pure fresh
water to refill all the water-casks; after which the scuppers were
plugged, wash-deck tubs filled, and all hands, stripping to the skin,
indulged in the unwonted luxury of a thorough ablution in the warm soft
water, finishing up by rousing out all their "wash clothes," and
treating them to the same beneficial process.

The storm cleared away as rapidly as it had worked up, leaving the sky
absolutely cloudless, and the water thrashed down by the rain until it
was smooth as a polished mirror. The heat was intense, and the men,
notwithstanding their refreshing bath, went about their work languidly,
perspiring at every pore. It was a positive relief to them to see the
sun at last go down behind the gleaming horizon, and a greater relief
still when, an hour later, a faint breeze from the eastward came
creeping over the water, and, barely filling the _Aurora's_ light upper
sails, gave her just sufficient way through the water to allow of her
head being kept in the right direction.

At eight o'clock that evening Mr Bowen retired to his cabin, it being
then his watch below,