Without knowing it in the least, we had run up alongside the Isle of Wight, and that tower, tinged a faint evening red in the salt wind-haze, was the lighthouse on St.Catherine's Point.
My skipper recovered first from his astonishment.His bulging eyes sank back gradually into their orbits.His psychology, taking it all round, was really very creditable for an average sailor.He had been spared the humiliation of laying his ship to with a fair wind; and at once that man, of an open and truthful nature, spoke up in perfect good faith, rubbing together his brown, hairy hands -the hands of a master-craftsman upon the sea:
"Humph! that's just about where I reckoned we had got to."The transparency and ingenuousness, in a way, of that delusion, the airy tone, the hint of already growing pride, were perfectly delicious.But, in truth, this was one of the greatest surprises ever sprung by the clearing up mood of the West Wind upon one of the most accomplished of his courtiers.