As this course would take us over new ground, Courtenay and I determined to remain on deck to pick up any information likely to be of use to us in the future; and I went to the helm, whilst my companion busied himself with the sounding-line. An hour’s run brought us to the inner end of the channel, which we found to be somewhat serpentine in its course, but trending generally in a north-north-west direction, with a minimum depth of two and a half fathoms. A run of about twenty minutes carried us clear of this channel and we found ourselves in Cardenas Bay, an almost landlocked sheet of water nearly double the area of Santa Clara Bay and with slightly deeper water, though even here navigation was only possible for vessels of very light draught. Stretching across the bay we, half an hour later, passed through a group of small cays, after which the water began to deepen somewhat. At two o’clock a.m. we passed Molas Point, and, hauling sharp round it, found ourselves a quarter of an hour later fairly out at sea and clear of all dangers. After which, thoroughly tired out by our long and busy day, Courtenay and I went below and turned in.
By noon next day—or rather, the same day, to speak with strict accuracy—we were off Havana; and I was in hopes that Carera would put in there, as he seemed at first to have some idea of doing; for our whole thoughts were now bent on effecting our escape from the felucca as early as possible, and I considered it not improbable that in so important a harbour some neutral ship might be found, on board which we might succeed in taking refuge, and with the master of which we might be able to effect an arrangement by which he would be willing to convey us to Port Royal. But to our intense, though secret, mortification, Carera at length resolved to keep straight on; and thus another of our cherished hopes was disappointed. We found, however, on inspecting Carera’s well-worn chart, that the route he had adopted would take us within some ten miles of West Point, Jamaica; and shaving the island so closely as that there was just a possibility that we might be pounced upon by one of our own cruisers, so that we were, after all, not exactly in despair. Still, there was, on the other hand, the chance that the felucca might scrape clear; and it was just this chance that we had to provide against, the attempt to do which cost us an infinite amount of anxious and almost fruitless thought. It was, indeed, the only thing now left us to think about. By a curious combination of fortuitous circumstances we had not only tumbled blindfold, as it were, into this singular adventure, but had also been enabled to successfully avoid awakening the suspicions of the people we were so unexpectedly associated with, as well as to see our way clearly all through the adventure, except to its successful ending; and, having carried the thing smoothly forward so far, we did not intend to be beaten at last, if there was any possibility of avoiding it. We racked our brains perpetually on the subject, separately and together, and numerous enough were the schemes which we evolved; but, alas, they were all so nearly impracticable that only under the most exceptionally favourable circumstances could we hope to carry them through successfully. The two least impracticable were Courtenay’s proposal to scuttle the felucca when within a few miles of Jamaica, trusting to all hands being able to make the island, as the nearest place of refuge, in the boat; and my own scheme, which was that we should secure possession of the armoury in the cabin, and, seizing upon the first favourable opportunity which might present itself, arm ourselves to the teeth, and, driving the watch on deck into the forecastle, take possession of the felucca and endeavour to navigate her into Port Royal by our own unaided exertions. The chief objections to the first scheme were the difficulty of obtaining the tools necessary to the effectual performance of the scuttling, in the first place, and, in the next, the still greater difficulty of performing the operation undetected. As regards my own scheme, the difficulty lay in the fact that, unless the watch could be driven below without alarming that portion of the crew already in the forecastle, our case was utterly hopeless; for, should these last be disturbed and come on deck, what could two slender lads, even fully armed, do against ten stout, sinewy, full-grown men? We might possibly shoot down three or four; but unless the rest happened to be cowed by this—which we decided was not by any means to be depended upon—we must then be quickly overpowered by sheer force of numbers. This scheme was justly regarded by us both as being of so exceedingly desperate a character, that only as a very last resource would its adoption be justifiable. Nevertheless, we determined to take such measures as were possible for the carrying out of either scheme in the event of nothing better occurring to us.
Meanwhile, day succeeded day without the slightest opportunity occurring for us to initiate Courtenay’s scheme. We required a good-sized auger with which to bore the necessary holes in the ship’s bottom, and some soft wood out of which to fashion plugs wherewith to plug up those holes until the proper moment should arrive for withdrawing them and letting the water into the hull. The wood there was no difficulty about, and we secured enough for a dozen or more plugs; but no such thing as an auger could we lay hands upon. We even went the perilous length of inventing a pretext for gaining access to the carpenter’s tool-chest, without success; and we were at length driven to the conclusion that, strange as it might seem, there was no such thing on board the felucca.
To add to our chagrin and discomfiture, we were no sooner round Cape San Antonio than we discovered that Carera, quite as acute as ourselves, had also foreseen the possibility of a British cruiser being fallen in with if Jamaica were shaved too closely; and he had provided against this contingency by laying off a course for Cartagena, which would enable him to give the island a wide berth. This move on our worthy skipper’s part we were, however, able to a large extent to frustrate; for we found that he was no navigator, sailing his vessel by dead-reckoning only, so that by each of us taking long spells at the tiller, as was now indeed our regular custom, we were able to edge the felucca considerably to windward of her course and in toward Jamaica without Carera being any the wiser.
In this exceedingly unsatisfactory manner time progressed—and we with it—until the sixth morning after our abrupt departure from the Conconil lagoons; when, as day broke and the sun rose, clearing away a light bank of grey cloud on the eastern horizon, a soft, delicate purplish hummock-like protuberance was seen rising out of the sea broad on our larboard bow, which was at once recognised as land, and so reported to Carera. Courtenay and I were in our berths and asleep at the moment; but the cry of “Land ho!” at once aroused us, and, slipping on our clothes, we hurried on deck to see what it looked like. We found Carera there, staring in the utmost perplexity at the small grey shape—only discernible when the felucca rose on the crest of a sea—and audibly wondering what on earth it could be. We knew pretty well what it was; Carera kept his small stock of charts in the after cabin, and always spread them out on the cabin table to lay off his course and distance run, so that we had had abundant opportunity to refer, as often as we pleased, to the particular chart he was using on that trip, and had met with no difficulty whatever in keeping a private dead-reckoning of our own, from which we were already aware that we might expect to make Dolphin Head, the highest point of land at the extreme westernmost end of Jamaica, on this particular morning. The report that other land had just become visible about a point further to the southward—and which we judged to be the lofty hill behind Blewfields Bay—confirmed us in our belief that our calculations had proved correct. Carera, in his perplexity, went aloft as far as our stumpy mast-head—a thing we had never known him do before—to get a clearer view of the land, the bearings of which were then taken, after which our skipper, accompanied by Courtenay and me, descended to the cabin to consult the chart. On reference to this, there was of course only one conclusion to be arrived at, which was that the land in sight was none other than Jamaica. It now turned out that he had never visited the island, had never indeed sighted it from the westward before; hence his difficulty in identifying it; but whilst we were all three discussing the matter down below Manuel came to the open sky-light in great trepidation to report shoal water all round the ship. This of course caused us to rush straightway on deck again, though Courtenay and I, knowing that we must be just about crossing the edge of the Pedro bank, felt no apprehension whatever. With Carera and the rest of the felucca’s people the matter was very different; they were all out of their reckoning, and confused accordingly; and the sudden sight of the bright-green water all about us, and the shorter, more choppy character of the sea, whilst only a short time before the water had been as purely blue as the heaven above us, and the sea long and regular, completed their discomfiture. For a minute or two disorder reigned supreme on board the little craft; everybody had an opinion to express and advice to give, everybody was jabbering excitedly at the same moment; no man paid the slightest attention to his neighbour; and as all hands were by this time on deck the result may be imagined. Even the helmsman deserted his post at last to join in the general clamour; a circumstance of which Courtenay took immediate advantage by springing to the tiller and ramming it hard down. The lively little craft at once shot into the wind with her canvas loudly flapping; and this stilled the tumult in a moment.
“’Bout ship!” shouted Courtenay, as every man stopped short in the midst of his gabbling; “’bout ship! there is blue water away there to windward of us, and if we can once reach it we are safe.”
The men sprang at once like cats to their stations, and the immense lateen sail was trimmed over on the other tack with an amount of alacrity which showed how intense was their relief at finding somebody on board equal to the occasion.
So far, this was well; the felucca was now heading about north-north-east and straight for the land, so that our chance of falling in with a British cruiser was a shade better than before. But, alas, no cruiser, or sail of any kind, was just then in sight; for, giving way to my anxiety, I in my turn shinned aloft to take a good look round. But the land was there, plainly enough, not only the two peaks already reported—the second of which was now directly ahead—but also five others, ranging from three to five points on our weather bow.
We stood on as we were going for a couple of hours, so as to get well to windward of the shoal—though, as a matter of fact, there was plenty of water over it everywhere to have floated us, or even a frigate, for that matter—going about again when the men had taken their breakfast. The high land was by this time well in sight all along our larboard beam, being certainly not more than forty miles distant; and the circumstance that Carera was afraid of the shoal and determined to keep off it was greatly in our favour, since in order to clear Portland Rock, at its north-eastern extremity, we should have to draw even closer still in with the island. I was at first terribly afraid that some suspicion would attach to my comrade and myself as the authors of the error in the course we had been steering, but I was agreeably disappointed; so far, indeed, was Carera from suspecting anything that he confided to us at breakfast—to which we had invited him—that, though he could not in the least account for our being so far to windward, he was most heartily glad of it, since we appeared to have the sea all to ourselves. He was still a trifle uneasy, however, at being so near the very stronghold and head-quarters of the dreaded British in those waters; and when we all went on deck after breakfast, his first act was to order a hand aloft to the mast-head to keep a bright lookout. It was just ten o’clock in the forenoon, and the man at the mast-head was in the very act of descending the rigging—another man getting ready meanwhile to relieve him—when he uttered an excited exclamation which at once attracted all eyes toward him.
“Look over there, captain, broad on our weather bow. Do you see that turtle lying there asleep on the water?”