CHAPTER VII.
_In Which the Sucking Fish Has a Chance to Show Its Virtue._ The breeze was so strong that we didn't use our engine that day.
Besides, I wanted to take a little time thinking over my plans.

I spent most of the time studying the charts and pondering John P.Tobias's narrative, which threw very little light on the situation.

There was little definite to go by but his mark of the compass engraven on a certain rock in a wilderness of rocks; and such rocks as they were at that.
As I thought of that particular kind of rock, I wondered too about my three friends, trussed like fowls, on their coral rock couches.

Of course they had long since cut each other free, and were somewhere active and evil-doing; and the thought of their faces seemed positively sweet to me, for of such faces are made "the bright face of danger" that all men are born to love.
Still the thought of that set me thinking too of my defences.

I looked well to my guns.