He soon had the small three-horse engine going, following to the letter the instructions set forth in the book of directions he had found.
It was with a light heart that he steered his tiny craft from the side of the imprisoned Eleanor Jones,
"Good-bye, old ship," he exclaimed, as he headed his craft toward the west—the direction in which the gallinazo had flown and in which he judged land must lie.
To his delight the patent wheel worked perfectly. Occasionally, it is true, Bill was compelled to stop the engine and, leaning over the stern, clear it of the few weeds that clung to it with a boat-hook he had brought for the purpose, but otherwise it answered every claim of its makers, that it could not be checked by even the densest tangle.
As the sun set and darkness closed in, Bill noticed, to his gratification, that the weed seemed to be thinning out and that the water-lanes grew more and more frequent.
He made a hasty meal off the provisions he had brought with him and, after a long period spent in trying to keep his eyes open, he was fain to lie down on the bottom of the launch and, with the engine shutoff, drift through the blackness till daylight. He awoke with a start. The launch was tossing about wildly and an occasional shower of spray flew over her side.
She had cleared the Sargasso and was in the open sea at last.
Bill started up the engine as soon as he got the sleep out of his eyes, and tossing the spume from her bow the little craft fairly leaped through the tumbling waters. But Bill soon saw that if she was to handle in such a sea he would have to reduce speed or risk getting swamped. He therefore throttled down the engine and rigged a tarpaulin over the bow to keep out the wave crests, part of which came tumbling aboard.
"If it freshens I don't stand much of a chance to get out alive," mused the sailor, as he sat in the stern of his cockle-shell, with only a frail bottom of half-inch planking between him and the floor of the sea.
The launch in fact, while a staunch little craft, was better adapted for lake or river navigation than as a sea-goer.