have been the only man who ever
scared his good angel away and found it faithful afterwards.

I unlashed the tiller and got the schooner before the wind and steered
until a little before noon, letting her drive dead before the sea, which
carried her north-east. Then securing the helm amidships I ran for the
quadrant, and whilst waiting for the sun to show himself I observed that
the vessel held herself very steadily before the wind, which might have
been owing to her high stern and the great swell of her sides and her
round bottom; but be the cause what it might, she ran as fairly with her
helm amidships as if I had been at the tiller to check her, a most
fortunate condition of my navigation, for it privileged me to get about
other work, whilst, at the same time, every hour was conveying me nearer
to the track of ships and further from the bitter regions of the south.

I got an observation and made out that the vessel had driven about
fifteen leagues during the night. She must do better than that, thought
I; and when I had eaten some dinner I took a chopper, and, going on to
the forecastle, lay out upon the bowsprit, and after beating the
spritsail-yard block clear of the ice, cut away the gaskets that
confined the sail to the yard, heartily beating the canvas, that was
like iron, till a clew of it fell. I then came in and braced the yard
square, and the wind, presently catching the exposed part of the sail,
blew more of it out, and yet more, until there was a good surface
showing; then to a sudden hard blast of wind the whole sail flew open
with a mighty crackling, as though indeed it was formed of ice; but to
render it useful I had to haul the sheets aft, which I could not manage
without the help of the tackles we had used in slinging the powder over
the side; so that, what with one hindrance and another, the setting of
that sail took me an hour and a half.

But had it occupied me all day it would have been worth doing. Trifling
as it was as a cloth, its effect upon the schooner was like that of a
cordial upon a fainting man. It was not that she sensibly showed nimbler
heels to it; its lifting tendency enabled her to ride the under-running
seas more buoyantly, and if it increased her speed by half a knot an
hour it was worth a million to me, whose business it was to take the
utmost possible advantage of the southerly gale.

I returned to the helm, warm with the exercise, and gazed forward not a
little proud of my w