e
large fish; two out of the four blades of the rotator were crushed or
bent, the work probably of a shark. Being sure of the sloop's
position, I lay down to rest and to think, and I felt better for it.
By daylight the island was abeam, about three miles away. It wore a
hard, weather-beaten appearance there, all alone, far out in the
Indian Ocean, like land adrift. The windward side was uninviting, but
there was a good port to leeward, and I hauled in now close on the
wind for that. A pilot came out to take me into the inner harbor,
which was reached through a narrow channel among coral reefs.

It was a curious thing that at all of the islands some reality was
insisted on as unreal, while improbabilities were clothed as hard
facts; and so it happened here that the good abbe, a few days before,
had been telling his people about the coming of Antichrist, and when
they saw the _Spray_ sail into the harbor, all feather-white before a
gale of wind, and run all standing upon the beach, and with only one
man aboard, they cried, "May the Lord help us, it is he, and he has
come in a boat!" which I say would have been the most improbable way
of his coming. Nevertheless, the news went flying through the place.
The governor of the island, Mr. Roberts, came down immediately to see
what it was all about, for the little town was in a great commotion.
One elderly woman, when she heard of my advent, made for her house and
locked herself in. When she heard that I was actually coming up the
street she barricaded her doors, and did not come out while I was on
the island, a period of eight days. Governor Roberts and his family
did not share the fears of their people, but came on board at the
jetty, where the sloop was berthed, and their example induced others
to come also. The governor's young boys took charge of the _Spray's_
dinghy at once, and my visit cost his Excellency, besides great
hospitality to me, the building of a boat for them like the one
belonging to the _Spray_.

My first day at this Land of Promise was to me like a fairy-tale. For
many days I had studied the charts and counted the time of my arrival
at this spot, as one might his entrance to the Islands of the Blessed,
looking upon it as the terminus of the last long run, made irksome by
the want of many things with which, from this time on, I could keep
well supplied. And behold, here was the sloop, arrived, and made
securely fast to a pier in Rodriguez. On the first eve