"Since you can't undertake any salvage operations with the mails on board, I don't mind admitting that I'm far from sure. You see, we have only one navigator, and if you were forward just now you would hear him raving. I've got to take her somehow—on dead reckoning—to the Canaries."
The mate opened his mouth and gasped. "Well," he said simply, "may I be ----!"
"I suppose that's natural, but it isn't much use to me. I've been creeping along the coast, so far, but it's evident that if I stick to it I won't reach Las Palmas. I want a definite point from which to make a start for the ocean run."
The mate pulled a pin out of the chart, and, measuring with the dividers, stuck it in again. "You're not quite so much out as I expected you would be," he said. "It's a straight run to the Isleta, Grand Canary. Whether you'll ever get there with the compass and the patent log is another matter, though, of course, if you go on long enough, you'll fetch some part of America. I don't want to be unduly inquisitive, but you will have lost, at least, an hour of our time before I put Pills on board again, and I really think there is a little you should tell me."
Austin briefly outlined his adventures, and when he had finished the mate brought his fist down with a bang on the table.
"Well," he said, "you have evidently excellent nerves of your own, and I'm not quite so sure as I was that you'll never get her home. I don't mind admitting now that at first I thought you were crazy. It's evident that your compass and patent log are all right, but you'll have to get your latitude and longitude, at least, occasionally, and I'll bend on some signals any skipper you come across would understand. If he's particularly good-natured he might chalk it on a board."
He stopped a moment with a little sardonic smile. "As a matter of fact, it's not quite so unusual a question as you might suppose."
Austin thanked him profusely, and felt a good deal easier when he and the mailboat's doctor, who arrived presently and gave him good advice, went away. Then, with a blast of her whistle, the Cumbria steamed on to the West again, and it was three or four days later, and she was plunging along with dripping forecastle at a little over six knots against the trades, when Austin had trouble with Jefferson. He was asleep in his room, aft, and, awakening suddenly, wondered for a moment or two what was wrong, until it dawned on him that it was the unusual quietness which had roused him. Then he sprang from his berth and hastened out on deck, for it was evident that the engines had stopped.
There was clear moonlight overhead, and the ship was rolling heavily, while as he looked forward a clamour broke out beneath the bridge, where grimy men came scrambling up from the stoke-hole gratings. It was light enough for him to see their blackened faces and their excited gestures. Other men were, he fancied, from the pattering on the iron deck, also moving in that direction from the forecastle; but what most astonished him was the sight of a gaunt white figure pacing up and down the bridge. While he gazed at it, Wall-eye came running towards him breathlessly.
"The Señor Jefferson has stopped the ship!" he said. "He has a pistol, and Maccario, who is shut up in the wheel-house, shouts us that he will go back to Africa again!"