At length they realized their true position. They were once more adrift on the open sea in a frail dory, and this time without food or water. This time, too, they had only themselves to blame; for only their own carelessness and direct disobedience of orders had brought them into this miserable plight. There was but little chance of their being picked up, for vessels were rare in these waters. As for seeking to gain the horrible, rock-bound coast of the island, the mere thought of what they had seen of it caused them to dread it almost as much as the open sea. Still, this seemed to be the only thing left for them to do, and once more the tiny compass that had already proved such a true friend to Breeze was brought into service. Upon getting the ball open and looking at the card, they were greatly puzzled to account for its movements, and thought it must be out of order. One side of it was so drawn down, and the other so lifted up, that the ball had to be inclined at a sharp angle to get the card to move at all. Neither of them had ever heard of the dip of the magnetic needle, nor did they know that they were within about ten degrees of the magnetic north pole, or the point at which a compass-needle, if allowed to move freely in every direction, would incline directly downward. However, where they were it still worked sufficiently well to give them a course towards the land, of which they could as yet see nothing, and with heavy hearts they began to row in the direction thus indicated. The mass of ambergris in the dory seriously interfered with their movements, and left room for only one of them to row at a time. At last, when they had rowed thus for several hours--though in this region of perpetual daylight they had no means of knowing what time it was--Breeze, tired, hungry, and discouraged, pulled in his oars, and exclaimed, “I’ve a great mind to heave that stuff overboard, and I wish with all my heart that we’d never set eyes on it. The idea of its getting us into such a scrape!” In saying this, Breeze was only dropping into the fault, so common to us all, of trying to lay the blame of his own wrong action upon somebody or something else; but Nimbus was wiser in this respect than his young companion. “No, no!” he said. “De amble grease all right. He don’ do nuffin. Now we got um, we keep um. Bimeby be berry glad ob um. Now let ole Nim row.” “I don’t care,” replied Breeze, changing places with the negro. “I’d give the whole of it this minute for a loaf of bread. I don’t believe I ever was so hungry in my life.” “Bimeby we get um bread,” said Nimbus, encouragingly, as he took the oars, “an’ hab um amble grease too.” For an hour or two longer the dory was urged forward by the powerful, steady strokes of the black man, who seemed never to tire or to grow impatient at their hard fate. At length Breeze exclaimed, “There’s land, Nimbus; I see it!”