By this means I was enabled also to go
about the deck and down below for things that I wanted, as occasion
required; also to cook and eat my victuals. But I did not dare to trust
to this plan during the three hours of rest that I allowed myself at
night, as the wind might have shifted, in which case I should have been
blown far out of my course ere I awoke. I was, therefore, in the habit
of _heaving-to_ during those three hours--that is, fixing the
rudder and the sails in such a position as that, by acting against each
other, they would keep the ship stationary. After my night's rest,
therefore, I had only to make allowance for the leeway she had made,
and so resume my course.
Of course I was to some extent anxious lest another squall should come,
but I made the best provision I could in the circumstances, and
concluded that by letting go the weather-braces of the top-sails and
the top-sail halyards at the same time, I should thereby render these
sails almost powerless. Besides this, I proposed to myself to keep a
sharp look-out on the barometer in the cabin, and if I observed at any
time a sudden fall in it, I resolved that I would instantly set about
my multiform appliances for reducing sail, so as to avoid being taken
unawares. Thus I sailed prosperously for two weeks, with a fair wind,
so that I calculated I must be drawing near to the Coral Island; at the
thought of which my heart bounded with joyful expectation.
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