Certainly, the cat and I made as queer a ship's company as ever went afloat together; and our little craft--with its cargo that would have bought a whole fleet's lading--was such an argosy as never before had sailed the seas. Nor did even Columbus, when he struck out across the black ocean westward, start upon a voyage so blind and so seemingly hopeless as was ours. The Admiral, at least, had with him such aids to navigation as his times afforded, and went cruising in open water; failing in his quest, the chance was free to him to put about again and so come once more to his home among living men. But I had not even his poor equipment; and as to turning again and so coming back to the point whence I started--even supposing that I could manage it--that ending to my voyage would be so miserable that it would be better for me to die by the way. In none of the vessels through which I had searched had I found a sextant; nor would it have been of any use to me, had I found one, unless I had found also a chronometer still keeping time. Charts I did find; but as I had to know my position to get any good from them, and as I would run straight for any land that I sighted without in the least caring on what coast I made my landfall, I left them behind. My only aid to navigation was a compass, that I got from the binnacle of a ship lying near the _Ville de Saint Remy_; and aboard the same vessel I found a very good spyglass, and gladly brought it along with me because it would add to my chances--should I reach open water--not only of sighting a distant ship but of making out how she was standing in time to head her off. But for all practical purposes the compass was enough for me. I knew that to the westward lay the American continent, and that between it and where I then was--for it was certain that I was not far south of the latitude of the Azores--was that section of the Atlantic which is more thickly crowded with ships than any other like-sized bit of ocean in the world. My chance of escape, therefore, and my only chance, lay in holding to a due west course: hoping first that, being clear of the weed, I might fall in with some passing vessel; and second that I might make the coast before a storm came on me by which my little boat would be swamped. And so I opened the throttle of my engine: and as the screw began to revolve I headed my boat for the cut in the weed which I had made when I was testing her--while my tow-rope drew taut and after me came slowly my long raft.