It was late in the evening before the anchor was up, and I bore off for the west, loath to leave my new friends.

But fresh winds filled the sloop's sails once more, and I watched the beacon-light at Plantation House, the governor's parting signal for the _Spray_, till the island faded in the darkness astern and became one with the night, and by midnight the light itself had disappeared below the horizon.
When morning came there was no land in sight, but the day went on the same as days before, save for one small incident.

Governor Sterndale had given me a bag of coffee in the husk, and Clark, the American, in an evil moment, had put a goat on board, "to butt the sack and hustle the coffee-beans out of the pods." He urged that the animal, besides being useful, would be as companionable as a dog.

I soon found that my sailing-companion, this sort of dog with horns, had to be tied up entirely.

The mistake I made was that I did not chain him to the mast instead of tying him with grass ropes less securely, and this I learned to my cost.