“All right, my lad,” said I. “You will find, before many hours are over your head, that you have made a wise choice. Can you read?”
The fellow intimated that he could.
“Then,” said I, “I will write out such instructions as it will be necessary for me to give you, and you must find an opportunity to read them over, unobserved by the rest. And you must also obey them to the letter; for upon your obedience will depend the success or failure of my scheme.”
With which I left him, and went below for my sextant.
Upon working out the result of my meridian observation, I found that we were close upon one hundred and forty miles from Staten Island, which bore North by East a quarter East of us—a distance which might be traversed in less than forty-eight hours by a properly-equipped boat, in fine weather. But what if it should come on to blow again? It was a contingency that I did not care to contemplate. There was one point in our favour: the mercury was rising slowly and steadily; and, please God, if we were able to leave the brig in good time we might succeed in reaching shelter of some sort before the setting-in again of bad weather. And, in any case, it was a contingency that had to be faced, since it was perfectly clear, by this time, that the brig had been so severely battered and strained during the late gale that nothing we could do would avail to keep her afloat much longer.
Having pricked off the brig’s position on the chart, I proceeded to write out my instructions to the man Harry. It may perhaps be thought that, in committing those instructions to paper, I was doing an imprudent thing—that I was, in fact, furnishing irrefutable evidence of my intentions, should the man choose to play me false, and show the paper to his companions. But I had faith in the fellow; there was an honest look in his eyes; and the fact that he had of his own free will warned me of the other men’s intentions was another point in his favour. And, last but not least, I believed that he had wit enough to see that he would be better serving his own interests by attaching himself to me than by throwing in his lot with the others, and that consequently he would have no interest in playing me false; I therefore unhesitatingly handed him his instructions at the first opportunity, and left him to carry them out with as little delay as possible.
Upon returning to the deck, after working out my sights, I found that the men had knocked off pumping, but were hanging about the deck, as though waiting for something, instead of going below to dinner. And presently I found out what was in the wind, the man known as Sam stepping forward to inquire whereabout my observation placed the ship. I told him.
“Then,” said he, “if we steers nothe-an’-by-east a quarter east, steady, we’re bound to fetch this here Staten Hiland, are we?”
“Certainly,” said I. “And I hope that we shall make it some time the day after to-morrow.”
“The day a’ter to-morrer!” ejaculated the man. “Do ye mean with this here brig?”