What could it be?
Sailing as swiftly as we had been for five days, it was inconceivable that we should not have made land if we had been steering north, and for that I had the evidence of my senses.

Where, then, was the mystery?
As I asked myself this question, Ramon touched me on the shoulder, and whispered in Quipai: "Just now Yawl said to Kidd that it was quite time we sighted San Ambrosio, and that if we missed it, after all, it would be cursed awkward.
And Kidd answered that 'if we fell in with Hux it would be all right.'" This was more puzzling still.

He had said before that, if we continued on the westward tack, we should make San Ambrosio at the time I was expecting to sight Callao, and now, although we were sailing due north, the villains counted on making San Ambrosio all the same.
Where was San Ambrosio?
Not on the coast, for they were clearly looking for it then, had probably been looking for it some time, and the mainland must be at least two hundred miles away.

If not on the coast San Ambrosio was an island, yet how it could lie both to the west and to the north was not quite obvious.

And who was Hux, and why should falling in with him make matters all right for my interesting shipmates?
Of one thing I felt sure--all right for these meant all wrong for me, and it behooved me to prevent the meeting--but how?
While these thoughts were passing through my mind, I was pacing to and fro on the sloop's deck, where was also Angela, sitting on a _cobija_, and leaning against the taffrail, Kidd being at the helm, and Ramon and Yawl smoking in the bows, for though they did not quite trust each other, they occasionally exchanged a not unfriendly word.