The schooner was labouring aimlessly for the want of the helm to guide her and keep her on her course; but soon I brought her to again and she went scudding along bravely.  I made no doubt that at the rate she was sailing I should sight Sumburgh Head early the next morning.

What troubled me most was that she appeared to be making a good deal of leeway.  This was my one danger, for if I should be taken so much to leeward as to miss the southern point of the Shetland Mainland, then I should lose my chance of making Lerwick.  Thus I might possibly be driven northward beyond the islands, and so find myself in a worse plight than if I had tried to regain the Orkneys.

The sight of a few fishing smacks on the far east inspired me with renewed hope.  They were making north, but they were too far away for me to signal them.  As a precaution, however, I hoisted a signal of distress in case any passing ship should see the Falcon whilst I was below or asleep at any time.  But this was of no avail as it happened, for all the rest of that day I saw not another sail.

The next night was spent in weariness on deck, with a cold rain falling.  I managed to keep awake without much difficulty, for I did not take any more spirits, but had a can of hot coffee beside me at the tiller, and went below several times to keep the fire alight and the kettle on the boil.  At about midnight I saw a ship’s light to windward, but it soon dropped below the horizon.  It showed me that I was still on the sea track between Orkney and Shetland, and I kept a sharp lookout towards morning for the Sumburgh light.

Day broke with a haze over the water and a cloudy sky.  The wind shifted to the northeast, bringing snow.  At midday the wind was due north, and several inches of snow lay on the schooner’s deck.  I boiled some potatoes for my dinner, and thought that I had something to be thankful for in having a good store of provisions on board.  I was beginning to think that I should need them, for I had not yet sighted the land.

Again the night came, and still I had seen no more sails.  I had seen no land.  The rays of the Sumburgh light never reached the poor Falcon.  I felt that I was drifting to westward, being carried away in the grip of one of those mysterious ocean currents that are the terror of the northern latitudes.

On the fourth day of my lonely voyage I was oppressed by a deep sense of the danger of my situation.  I realized that I had missed the Shetlands; that I could now do no more than abandon myself to the will of the wind, and trust to falling in with some vessel that might be making for the Faroe Islands or for Iceland.  If I had had a companion to take watch about with me I might have got along fairly well; but with my hard work of trimming the sails, and battling with the fitful winds, I could not do without sleep, and during my hours of sleep the schooner always fell off her course, and I could make no reckoning.