In another few moments the white-stemmed trunks fell aside again, and they drove out once more into clear and swiftly-flowing water. Then the Spaniards howled together, and Austin, twining his hand in the lanyard, unloosed the whistle, and hurled back a great vibratory blast at the beaten forest. It was, he admitted afterward, a somewhat feeble thing, but he said he felt the occasion demanded something then.
After that they had no great difficulty, and by nightfall they drove her out with sluicing decks over the smoking bar, dipping the bleached and rotten ensign to the little white gunboat that lay rolling behind the island. Then Austin felt a great weight lifted off him as he flung himself into a canvas chair upon his bridge. There was now only open sea in front of them, and he had seen that the big pump could keep the water down. He felt that he could contrive by some means to make Las Palmas.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN COMMAND
Austin was quite aware that he had his work cut out when he was left in command of the Cumbria, with half her crew sick, and her skipper raving deliriously. He knew very little about medicine, and certainly no more about what he termed the astronomical side of navigation, and after several attempts decided that it was beyond his ability to take an accurate solar observation. There were, however, other, though not very reliable, means of approximately ascertaining the ship's position which he was acquainted with, and he nerved himself afresh for a grapple with what most men would, under the circumstances, have considered insuperable difficulties.
He had two Spaniards who could be trusted to keep the steamer more or less on the course he gave them, while the Cumbria steerd handily, which is more than all steamers do. There was a large-scale chart, considerably mildewed, but still legible, in the skipper's room, as well as a pilot guide to the West African coast, while the patent log that towed astern to record the distance run appeared to be working accurately. He could thus, it was evident, depend in some degree upon what is termed dead reckoning, which is comparatively reliable in the case of short distances run in the vicinity of a high, well lighted coast. The one the Cumbria steamed along was, however, not lighted at all, and most of it scarcely rose a foot above sea-level, while when he had ruled the line she was presumed to be travelling on across the chart, and pricked off the distance the patent log told him she had run, there remained the question how far the tide and the Guinea stream had deflected it, and whether the steering and her compasses could be trusted.
It was also rather an important question; and when he had, on several occasions, peered for an hour at a time through Jefferson's glasses in search of a cape or island which the chart indicated should be met with, and saw only a hazy line of beach, or a dingy smear on the horizon which might be mangroves, or, quite as likely, a trail of mist, the probability of his ever reaching the Canaries seemed very remote indeed. There would, he fancied, be no great difficulty in obtaining a mate and two or three seamen from one of the steamers he came across, but in that case the strangers would expect half the value of the Cumbria's hull and cargo, and very likely make their claim to it good. He was also aware that more experienced skippers than he was had put their ships ashore upon that coast. But what troubled him most was the fact that if he lost sight of it, or found no point that he could identify, he would have nothing to start from when he must boldly head her out across the open ocean.
She had rolled along at six to eight knots, with the big pump going, for several days, when a trail of smoke crept out of the Western horizon. Austin watched it anxiously, and when at last a strip of black hull and a yellow funnel grew into shape beneath it, summoned the donkey-man, and with his assistance, which was not especially reliable, worried over the signal code painted on the flag rack in the wheel-house when he had stopped the engines. It was almost obliterated, and most of the flags themselves were missing; but between them they picked out sundry strips of mildewed bunting and sent them up to the masthead. The little West-coast mailboat was close alongside now, and flags also commenced to flutter up between her masts, while her whistle screamed in long and short blasts. Austin, anxious as he was, laughed a little.
"That is apparently the Morse code, and it's unfortunate that neither of us understands it," he said. "I presume it means that they can make nothing of our flags, and one could hardly blame them. Any way, we have got to stop her."
Tom grinned as he pulled an armful of tattered ensigns out of a locker. "This one should do the trick," he said. "I'd start the whistle."