uestion, Ramon touched me on the shoulder, and
whispered in Quipai:

"Just now Yawl said to Kidd that it was quite time we sighted San
Ambrosio, and that if we missed it, after all, it would be cursed awkward.
And Kidd answered that 'if we fell in with Hux it would be all right.'"

This was more puzzling still. He had said before that, if we continued on
the westward tack, we should make San Ambrosio at the time I was expecting
to sight Callao, and now, although we were sailing due north, the villains
counted on making San Ambrosio all the same.

Where was San Ambrosio? Not on the coast, for they were clearly looking
for it then, had probably been looking for it some time, and the mainland
must be at least two hundred miles away. If not on the coast San Ambrosio
was an island, yet how it could lie both to the west and to the north was
not quite obvious. And who was Hux, and why should falling in with him
make matters all right for my interesting shipmates? Of one thing I felt
sure--all right for these meant all wrong for me, and it behooved me to
prevent the meeting--but how?

While these thoughts were passing through my mind, I was pacing to and fro
on the sloop's deck, where was also Angela, sitting on a _cobija_, and
leaning against the taffrail, Kidd being at the helm, and Ramon and Yawl
smoking in the bows, for though they did not quite trust each other, they
occasionally exchanged a not unfriendly word. Now and then I glanced
mechanically at the compass. As I have already mentioned, it was not an
ordinary ship compass in a brass frame, but a makeshift affair, in a
wooden frame, to which Kidd had attached makeshift gimbals and hung on a
makeshift binnacle, the latter being fixed between the tiller and the
cabin-hatch. The deck was very narrow, and to lengthen my tether I
generally passed between the tiller and the binnacle, sometimes exchanging
a word with Angela. Once, as I did so, the sun's rays fell athwart the
sloop's stern, and, happening the same moment to look at the compass, I
made a discovery that sent the blood with sudden rush first to my heart
and then to my brain; a small piece of iron, invisible in an ordinary
light, had been driven into the framework of the compass, close to that
part of the card marked "W," thereby deflecting the needle to the point in
question, so that ever since our departure from Quipai, we had been
steering due west, instead of north by west, as I intended and believed.
The d