When, at daybreak, we resumed our course up the coast, we knew that we were near the end of our journey, for Gleazen and Matterson were constantly conferring together and with Gideon North; and a dozen times in two hours, one or the other of them charged the masthead man to keep a smart lookout.
Now Gleazen would lean his elbows on the rail and search the horizon; now he would hand the glass to Matterson and stride the deck in a fury of impatience. Below, the log-book lay open on the cabin table at a blank page, on which there was a rough pencil-sketch of coast and a river and an island. On a chart, which lay half open across a chair, someone had drawn a circle with a pair of compasses, half on land and half on sea; and when Arnold silently drew my attention to it, I saw that in the circle someone had penciled the same sketch that I had seen on the blank page of the log-book.
Coast, river, and island! We studied the sketch in silence and talked of it afterward.
That evening, for the first time in many hours, we came on Captain North alone by the rail.
"Someone has drawn an island on the chart," said Arnold, slowly.
Gideon North growled assent.
"Well?" said Arnold.
"It would seem that the blithering idiots don't know its bearings within a hundred miles, and yet they expect me to bring it straight aboard. One says thus and so; t'other says so and thus. Gleazen talked loudest and I took his word first—like a fool, for he's no navigator. I'd not put such foolishness beyond Seth Upham, but the others ought to know better. Aye! And they do know better."
"What island?" I demanded.
He shot a keen glance at me.