Shortly before daybreak, on the third morning after leaving Port Royal, we found ourselves rapidly drawing into smooth water--so rapidly, indeed, that Pearce, the boatswain, whose watch it was, came down in some alarm and roused me out, fearing that Willoughby, the midshipman who was acting as master, had made a mistake in his reckoning, and that we were about to blunder on to some danger or another.
