of Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob, and
he walked down the wharf and he went aboard the ship. Then the sailors
cast off the ropes that had held her, and they hoisted the sails and
sailed away. They sailed out of the harbor and past the islands and into
the bay and then into the great ocean, and Boston was left far astern.

And, when they had been gone from Boston nearly a week, the sailors
fixed the sails so that the wind would blow on them the right way, and
then they didn't have to change them for a long time, for they were in
the part of the ocean that the trade winds blow over. In this part of
the ocean the winds blow nearly always from about north-east, so that
they are fair winds for a ship that is going south. That is one reason
why ships don't always go the way that you would think would be the
shortest, for it may be that, by going a way that is a little longer,
they will be helped so much by the winds that they will get to the place
where they are going sooner than if they went a shorter way.

And there is another reason why ships do not always go the shortest way.
In some parts of the ocean the ocean water is moving in one direction
and in other parts of the ocean the water is moving in another
direction. So, if a captain knows about these ocean currents, he can
sail in that part of the ocean where the water is moving in the
direction that he wants to go, and the ocean and the winds will both
help the ship. Every captain of a ship knows about these ocean currents
and these winds, and chooses the part of the ocean where they will help
his ship along. Captain Solomon knew all about them.

[Illustration: "CAPTAIN SOLOMON ... WAS WATCHING THE MOON"]

So the _Industry_ sailed along, and she had got almost to the place
where she would be past the trade winds; and it had got to be the
evening of that day, and the sun had set a long time, but the moon
had just risen. And Captain Solomon was standing by the rail, and he was
watching the moon and the reflection of the moonlight on the water, and
he was thinking that he wished the _Industry_ could sail right up that
broad path of moonlight forever; for it was very beautiful. Captain
Solomon had such thoughts sometimes, but he didn't tell anybody about
them, for they would think he was crazy, and the mates and the sailors
wouldn't like to sail in any ship that he was the captain of. And while
he was thinking these thoughts he was startled by the cry of the lookout