"After this exchange of confidence, gratitude on their parts, and the inexpressible satisfaction of having achieved such a deliverance on mine, united our hearts together; and in the society of the noble Spaniard and his amiable daughter, I, after my long years of lonely wretchedness, felt for a time the hours pass rapidly away. There was I know not what of romantic interest in our peculiar situation. A hurricane would soon have drowned us all; but the wind blew fair and steady. The prospect around us was unvarying, but one of which the eye could not soon grow weary. At noon, when the sun, vertical in that latitude, poured down his irradiation from the zenith, he appeared like a glorious ornament in the centre of the canopy of the heavens, from which they descended in a uniform arch of unclouded blue until they rested on the farthest edge of the waste of water, over whose billows our little bark was gallantly bounding, and which, wherever the eye was turned, seemed to stretch 'Far into silent regions, blue and pale.' One cloud there was which rested on my mind. All seemed to regard me with confidence--to look on me for direction; but I had no confidence in myself. Unaided by compass or nautical science, we were steering almost at random, vaguely guessing at a south-westerly course, from the position of the rising and setting sun. "In this manner, week after week passed away, until one morning, when I was awakened by the hand of Don Pedro laid on my shoulder. He seemed to be in great agitation; and I hastily arose and followed him forward. When we reached the open part of the vessel, he raised his arm and pointed to where, over a little aft the weather-bow, we could observe, hung high in air, the inverted images of a number of ships, with a large vessel in the centre, and a line of coast stretching hard by. "'Sir,' said he, 'I know that to be the coast and shipping of Havannah.' "'All's well,' cried I; 'who is at the helm?' "'Bill Bowline, your honour.'