While the gale lasted, Reuben Hawkshaw took every precaution to enable him to keep his reckoning, heaving the log every half hour, and noting constantly each change in the direction of the wind; so that, when all was over, he could tell within fifty miles the spot where the gale left her--for in those days the instruments of navigation were in their infancy, and sailors relied chiefly on the compass, and dead reckoning, to bring them safe to port, however long their voyage might be. Reuben Hawkshaw knew of no other plan, but as far as these went he was an excellent navigator, and was seldom many miles out in making a landfall. As soon as the gale abated, sail was again made on the ship, and she proceeded on her course. In another three weeks, the mates were seen frequently to ascend into the tops, and the news spread among the crew that the Spanish islands lay not far ahead. The justness of the captain's reckoning was soon proved; for at daybreak, one morning, land was perceived directly ahead; though still lying, like a patch of low cloud, on the horizon. A cheer broke from those on deck, as soon as the mate proclaimed that to a certainty it was land they saw, and the watch below came pouring up. Another cheer saluted the captain as he came out from his cabin--a tribute to his seamanship, in thus bringing them straight across the ocean, on a path that no Englishman had ever before sailed. He, with the two mates, at once ascended to the fore top. From here, as the morning brightened, two other points of land could be seen, far away on either hand. "We are evidently approaching small islands. This is just what we hoped. My fear was that we might strike Hispaniola, or Porto Rico. When we get nearer land we will lower our topsails, so as not to be so easily made out from the land. Now we will go below, and try and mark off our place on the chart." Chapter 4: Among The Islands. "Now, let us go through our calculations again," the captain said when they entered his cabin. "How long will you be, Captain?" the first mate asked. "Half an hour, Standing." "Then I will come again or, if you want me before that, send for me," and the first mate went out on deck again, for though well skilled to handle a ship in all weathers, and as brave and hardy a seaman as sailed out of Plymouth, James Standing could neither read nor write; and though in a rough sort of way he could reckon the course a ship should lie, and make allowance for leeway and currents and baffling winds, and could bring a ship into any port in England or the Low Countries, he was of no use in a matter of this kind.