“Sail ho!” shouted I, as I caught a glimpse of the royals of a vessel gleaming snowy white in the brilliant sunshine far away in the south-western board.
“Where away?” shouted Bob.
“Broad on our lee-bow,” I answered, still clinging to the thin wire topmast shrouds.
“What d’ye make her out to be, Harry, my lad?” was the next question.
“Either a barque or a brig,” answered I; “the latter I am inclined to believe, though he is still too far away for his mizzen-mast to show, if he has one.”
“Why d’ye think it’s a brig, Harry?” queried Bob.
“His canvas looks too small for that of a barque,” replied I, as I slid down on deck, having seen all that it was possible to see at present.
“Then it’s that murderin’ Albatross again, for a thousand,” ejaculated Bob, in a tone of deep disgust. “That’s just the p’int where he might reasonably be looked for. He made sail long enough afore we did, a’ter the gale had blowed itself out, and consequently got a good long leg to the west’ard of us; but as we’ve been steering perhaps a couple of p’ints higher than he has for most of the time since, we’ve overhauled him; and now he’s come round to go to the nor’ard, and we’ve fallen in with him once more.”
I was inclined to take the same view of the matter that Bob did. It is true that when once a ship passes out of sight at sea you can never be sure of her exact position afterwards; yet, under certain circumstances, taking the direction of the wind and the state of the weather as data upon which to base your argument, and, in conjunction with these, the course the vessel was steering when last seen, or the part of the world to which you have reason to believe she is bound, it is astonishing how near a guess may be and is not unfrequently made as to her whereabouts.
Now we knew that the Albatross was bound to the Pacific when we last saw her, because she was then hove-to, evidently with the intention of maintaining as weatherly a position as possible. Had she been bound to the eastward, the weather was not so bad at that time as to have prevented her scudding before it, which she undoubtedly would have done under such circumstances, making a fair wind of it.