“Are you still there, Lady Olivia?”
“Yes,” came the instant reply. “What now, Captain?”
“I want you to tell me what you can about the course that this fellow Barker is steering. Did you notice it?”
“Yes,” answered Lady Olivia; “fortunately I thought of that. He was steering due east when he released me; and so soon as I got down into Ida’s cabin I took the little aneroid with the compass at its back that hangs there and set it on the table, so that I could watch it. It was just eleven o’clock, by the clock in the pilot-house, when we passed out through the reef; and at twelve o’clock he altered his course to north-east-by-east, which is the course that he is steering at present.”
“Thanks, very much. That will do excellently. Please keep an eye on that compass, and let us know if he makes any further alterations,” said Mildmay; and when he had received Lady Olivia’s answer, he handed back the telephone to Sir Reginald and, drawing a pencil from one pocket, and his watch from the other, made a brief note on one of his cuffs.
“Has either of you fellows a decent-sized bit of paper about you?” he asked.
Lethbridge drew his pocket-book from his pocket. “Will a leaf—or the whole book—be of any use to you?” he asked.
“A couple of leaves will do. Thanks,” he replied, as Lethbridge tore out two and handed them to him. With one of these he constructed a kind of scale; then, with its aid, he drew a diagram on the other.
“So far as I can make out,” he said, “with the help of this rough diagram, the ship is at this moment twenty-eight and three-quarter miles east-north-east of us—there, or thereabouts. We will therefore run on that course for the next two hours and twenty-five minutes—by which means we shall cut off a few miles—and then we must haul up on the same course as herself, and make a dead run after her.”
Then von Schalckenberg spoke up. “May I be permitted to have a word or two with Lady Elphinstone?” he asked, addressing Sir Reginald.