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.