One might say that with a square-rigged ship it would always be so.

But the _Spray_, at the moment of the tragedy in question, was sailing around the globe with no one at the helm, except at intervals more or less rare.
However, I may say here that this would have had no bearing on the murder case in Boston.

In all probability Justice laid her hand on the true rogue.

In other words, in the case of a model and rig similar to that of the tragedy ship, I should myself testify as did the nautical experts at the trial.
[Illustration: Body-plan of the _Spray_.] But see the run the _Spray_ made from Thursday Island to the Keeling Cocos Islands, twenty-seven hundred miles distant, in twenty-three days, with no one at the helm in that time, save for about one hour, from land to land.

No other ship in the history of the world ever performed, under similar circumstances, the feat on so long and continuous a voyage.