lucky accident for me, inasmuch as the skiff was not again hoisted on board, but—the weather being exceedingly fine, and we soon expecting to use her to help in mooring ship—left towing astern. That same night, Wright came to me and pointed her out as a means of escape. ‘Look you,’ says he, ‘your business is to get ashore on some island where you will find Englishmen, and which is not entirely under French or Spanish influence. Now, on the coast of Hispaniola are not a few of your countrymen and mine, sometimes cruizing, sometimes hunting and slaughtering cattle. By the course we are now lying, we shall have to run all along the northern coast of Hispaniola, which we will probably approach close to, for the benefit of the land-breeze at night, and because the shore is bold and the sea deep. Provided the skiff be left towing astern, it will not be difficult for you to smuggle yourself into it in the night-time, and so escape ashore.’ This advice appeared to me admirable, and threw me quite into a fever of eagerness and anxiety. I was in the middle watch that night, and how often I gazed upon the little boat—the expected ark of my deliverance—as she tossed upon the smooth ridges of swell, which glanced like silver in the bright moonlight! About nine o’clock in the morning the trade wind resumed its powers, and we soon saw rising out of the ocean, upon our lee bow, the blue-peaked mountains of Hispaniola. All day, you may be sure, I very eagerly watched the weather, fearing lest the approach of a squall would cause Montbars to order the skiff to be taken on deck, but the sky continued quite cloudless, the sun was burning hot, and the sea breeze—for such amid the Western Indies they call the regular daily trade wind—blew most refreshingly upon our starboard quarter, urging the felucca gloriously along. We were now fast closing in with the coast, which stretched in a long high range under the lee; and as we approached an exceeding bold promontory, called Le Vieux Cap François, I saw how delicious was the land, with its bright green forests—its rocks, rising from thick bushes and brushwood—and the great blue mountain peaks in the distance. Besides ourselves the ocean was solitary. No sail scudded before the breeze—no fishing-boat rode head to sea, surrounded by the buoys of her nets and lines. All above was a sky of dazzling and lustrous brightness—beneath was a limpid and foaming sea, from which arose the groves and rocks, the deep ravines and the green savannahs of an isle which seemed Paradise. I stood in the bows of the felucca, and stretched forth my arms, and prayed for the moment when I should set foot on shore.