As the evening approached, I was so impatient that I disposed of the biscuits, the powder, and the ball about my person, and was for ever going below to the berth to see that the musket was safe. The mariners, however, being excited and joyful, that the end of the voyage was nigh, gave little heed to me, otherwise my continued movements and feverish demeanour could not have but raised suspicion. In those low latitudes there is but little twilight, and half an hour after the sun went down into the sea ahead of us, the stars were shining out through the night. Meantime the sea-breeze had died away, and for an hour or longer we were left heaving upon the glassy swell, the land showing in vast dusky masses which, as it were, cut great spaces out of the firmament twinkling with stars, and the roar of the surf coming heavy and loud over the sea. Presently, after divers faint puffs, which caused the canvas to flap, shaking down on the deck great showers of dew, the land-wind, or _terral_, arose in its turn, balmy and sweet with the smell of the forests, and our lateen sails being dipped, we glided along, leaning over to seaward. The mid-watch came at last, and it had not been set for more than half an hour, ere the men dropped to sleep, under the lee of the bulwarks, excepting the steersman, and he leaned heavily and drowsily over the tiller. Then I brought on deck the musket and the broc, depositing them in safe places. But the question was how to get on board the skiff so as to elude the notice of the sailor who steered. Having soon devised a plan, I communicated it to Wright, who did not hesitate to put it into execution. Going aft, he stood beside the helmsman, and after some time, looking astern, remarked how the land-wind broke the usual heave of the sea into wild disorderly waves, and then observing that the skiff might be injured by being flung under our counter by the jumble of the water, he took the rope and hauled the boat ahead—the steersman thinking no harm—until he made it fast alongside, and screened from sight by the mainsail. In five minutes after, with a strong gripe of the hand, and a fervent ‘God speed you,’ I swung myself noiselessly aboard, and placed the gun and the broc in the bottom of the boat. Wright, so I must still call him, then undid the rope. My hand was at that moment upon the smooth side of the felucca, which I suddenly felt slip by me; I was adrift! Holding my breath, and my hand still against the planking of the vessel, she glided fast and faster by me, eluding as it were my clutch, when her shape melted away into the run. A minute after and I saw the small dusky hull and white stretching canvas becoming indistinct in the darkness ahead. I was alone, but I was free. For near an hour I remained almost motionless, fearing every moment to hear an alarum-gun fire; but the night continued silent, and then with a good heart I took up my oars, and using two as sculls, rowed towards the coast.