"After all," he thought to himself, "this Captain Vesey, jolly fellow as he is, never had to struggle with fortune as I shall do; and I don't think he has the same pluck in him that my father has, and that people say I have. We'll see, anyhow. Other fellows have been fortunate in a few years, why shouldn't I? 'In a few years?' Yes, these are the very words Captain Vesey laughed at me for. 'In a few years?' To be sure. And why not? What is the good of a fortune to a fellow after he gets old, and all worn down with gout and rheumatism? 'Cheer, boys, cheer;' I'm going in to win."
How slow the ship sailed now, apparently; and when it did blow it usually blew the wrong way, and she would have to stand off and on, or go tack and half-tack against it, like a man with one long leg and one short. But she was becalmed more than once, and this did seem dreadful. It put Archie in mind of a man going to sleep in the middle of his work, which is not at all the correct thing to do.
Well, there is nothing like a sailing ship after all for teaching one the virtue of patience; and at last Archie settled down to his sea life. He was becoming quite a sailor—as hard as the wheel-spokes, as brown as the binnacle. He was quite a favourite with the captain and officers, and with all hands fore and aft. Indeed he was very often in the forecastle or galley of an evening listening to the men's yarns or songs, and sometimes singing a verse or two himself.
He was just beginning to think the Dugong was Vanderdecken's ship, and that she never would make port at all, when one day at dinner he noticed that the captain was unusually cheerful.
"In four or five days more, please God," said he, "we'll be safe in Sydney."
Archie almost wished he had not known this, for these four or five days were the longest of any he had yet passed. He had commenced to worship his patched-up idols again, and felt happier now, and more full of hope and certainty of fortune than he had done during the whole voyage.
Sometimes they sighted land. Once or twice birds flew on board—such bright, pretty birds too they looked. And birds also went wheeling and whirring about the ship—gulls, the like of which he had never seen before. They were more elegant in shape and purer in colour than ours, and their voices were clear and ringing.
Dick Whittington construed words out of the sound of the chiming bells. Therefore it is not at all wonderful that Archie was pleased to believe that some of these beautiful birds were screaming him a welcome to the land of gold.
Just at or near the end of the voyage half a gale of wind blew the ship considerably out of her course. Then the breeze went round to fair again, the sea went down, and the birds came back; and one afternoon a shout was heard from the foretop that made Archie's heart jump for very joy.
"Land ho!"