From that time he grew steadily better, and in another day or two he was able to leave his cot and to indulge in a bath, a clean shave, and an hour or so on deck, half-sitting, half-reclining in a hammock which the skipper had ordered to be slung for him from the spanker-boom. He suffered from extreme bodily weakness, doubtless the result of his frenzied exertions on board the ill-fated _Princess Royal_; but that was, of course, an evil which rest and nourishing food would speedily remedy. But he did not recover the use of his reasoning faculties for some time after the period now referred to, and then the recovery was only partial. As for Captain Leicester, he was in high spirits; the breeze lasted fresh for four full days after his encounter with the pirate schooner, so fresh indeed that once or twice he was obliged to furl his royals, in order to save the sticks; and the barque, no longer compelled to moderate her pace to that of the slowest sailer in a large fleet, maintained a steady speed of twelve knots during the whole of that time, thus fully making up, in the skipper's opinion, for the time and ground lost during the gale, and encouraging him to look forward hopefully to the accomplishment of a quick passage. But such a state of things was too good to last. On the fifth day the wind fell light, and on the sixth it failed them altogether, leaving the _Aurora_ helpless in the "doldrums," she being at that time about a thousand miles from Cape Haytien, and six hundred from the island of Saint Thomas. This was particularly vexatious, because Captain Leicester considered that, had the breeze continued fresh and favourable for only twenty-four hours longer, it would in all probability have run him fairly into the North-East trades, and he would then have been able to calculate the duration of the remainder of the voyage with almost mathematical exactness, and, what was still more to the purpose, would have been sure of a breeze, and that a fair one, for the remainder of the way. However, there was no help for it, they had to take the wind and weather as it came, and the crew had a busy time of it "box-hauling" the yards, now this way, now that; trimming the sails to every passing breath of the capricious air, and, after all their trouble, accomplishing only some half-a-dozen miles during the whole day.