log says you have run far enough. You carefully search the horizon for it. No light is visible. A cold sweat begins to break out. You are lost—lost at sea. You must have allowed too little for leeway and have passed far outside of the light. What had you better do, keep your course, or haul up? After thinking it over, and again consulting the chart, you decide to hold the course for an hour longer. How slowly that hour drags away! At its expiration the log shows three and one-half miles more. You are now by your reckoning eleven and[33] one-half miles from the light. Certainly you must see it. A long search with the glass; no light. You decide to haul up and try for it to the north'rd and west'rd, but before doing so have one more look. Hello! there it is, a point on the starboard bow. That's the light, sure enough. It flashes; you count ten seconds, fifteen seconds, darkness; again it flashes ten seconds. "Light ho!" you shout.

Has your log overrun that amount? You decide it has; but a few minutes later the light is lost again. That settles it—fog or mist inshore; the log is all right. So you stand boldly on, your whole mind aglow with the triumph you have just achieved—that of making a good landfall. The drama of Columbus at San Salvador is replayed, you taking the part of the great admiral, and your crew that of the conscience-stricken mutineers. You wonder why they ever doubted your skill and knowledge, forgetting that you doubted yourself.

The next day your crew strut proudly about the port like a lot of mariners just returned from circumnavigating the globe. They are proud of you, proud of their vessel, and very proud of themselves. But what a change it has worked in you! You are a very different man to-day[34] from what you were the hour you took your departure to