It was still a long way off, but there could be no mistaking this: it was the high island of Rodriguez.

I hauled in the patent log, which I was now towing more from habit than from necessity, for I had learned the _Spray_ and her ways long before this.

If one thing was clearer than another in her voyage, it was that she could be trusted to come out right and in safety, though at the same time I always stood ready to give her the benefit of even the least doubt.

The officers who are over-sure, and "know it all like a book," are the ones, I have observed, who wreck the most ships and lose the most lives.

The cause of the discrepancy in the log was one often met with, namely, coming in contact with some large fish; two out of the four blades of the rotator were crushed or bent, the work probably of a shark.