Night had again set in, and in the cabin Dom Maxara sat, his head thrown back and his eyes closed, as though asleep, while his daughter, lying on a sofa, covered with shawls, was endeavouring to read. It was nearly midnight, but no one thought of retiring. At the table, close under a lamp, which was waving wildly to and fro, the captain was seated, intently studying a government map, while Wyzinski leaned over his shoulders in earnest conversation.
“There,” said Captain Weber, as he placed a pin in the chart, “there is just where the brig is.”
“And yet it was only this morning land was sighted,” observed the other.
“There exist strong currents, which have set us bodily to leeward; the wind, too, has more westing in it, and is driving us down on the land. It is but a question of time.”
“If the wind has drawn more to the westward, could we not hold our course!”
“As I said some time since, the brig has been three years at sea without an overhaul. If you had asked me the same question this morning, I should have expressed every confidence in her powers, but you saw yourself the sticks go over the side like rotten carrots, and I should have to carry every rag we could set to claw off this shore, for I don’t want to scud before the gale if it can be avoided.”
“Many years ago,” said Wyzinski, “I was one of a party of missionaries who sailed from Delagoa Bay with the intention of forming a mission on the island of Madagascar. The small vessel which carried us was commanded by a man who had traded with the natives, and who knew the coast well. He ran into a beautiful bay, all but land-locked, where we anchored, and remained for nearly a month.”
“What course did you steer after leaving Delagoa Bay—can you remember?”
Wyzinski was silent, evidently trying to recall long-past events, while Isabel had let her book fall on to the sofa by her side, and, with her limited stock of English, was evidently trying to catch the meaning of the conversation. Above all came the wild roar of the waves’ boiling around them, the groaning and creaking of the ship’s timbers, and the boom of the fore-staysail as it shook in the wind.
“Our course lay north-east and by north,” at length said Wyzinski, his thoughtful face raised to the lamp, “for the first twenty-four hours.”