"I have often thought," continued Hislop, whose memory was singularly retentive, "that the story may have originated in the queer old nautical idea of a downhill current, by which any kind of craft that doubled Cape Bojadore, on the western coast of Africa, could never return; for such was the fixed idea of all mariners prior to the voyage of Bartolomeo Diaz, in 1486, and the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. For this downhill current was supposed to run south from the equator; and hence ships, however close-hauled, might beat and tack against it in vain; for an adverse wind blew forever in the same direction, till their spars rotted, their sails were frittered into rags, and their rigging wasted away—till their seams gaped and opened, and they sank into the sea a worn-out wreck."
With conversations such as these, combining amusement with instruction, this intelligent young sailor was wont to beguile our watches, while the San Ildefonso sped on her homeward track.
We recrossed the line, and each successive morning I hailed the sun with fresh pleasure, as we drew nearer the latitude of Europe; but we could still sniff the hot wind that came from the deserts of Africa; and, ere long, the more experienced eyes on board began to discover to the eastward a blink in the sky, as that peculiar appearance of the atmosphere which indicates the locality of land is named by seamen.
CHAPTER XLVII.
A MUTINY.
From time to time Lambourne made Hislop and me rather uneasy, by expressing suspicions of a collusion among the men forward.
The whispers of the treasure alleged to be in possession of the old ex-Governor of Surabaya, and the desire of Ojeda and one or two others to save Antonio from the punishment that would certainly overtake him, if we reached Teneriffe or signalled a Spanish ship of war, formed an unpleasant conjunction of ideas.
We, the survivors of the crew of the poor Eugenie, knew that if any revolt broke out among this mixed gang of dingy rascals, Spaniards, Creoles, and Lascars, our fate would be sealed. We were among the first who would assuredly be knocked on the head.
There must be great truth in the maxim, that "no human being ever came near another without influencing them for good or for evil."
On board the San Ildefonso it would seem that Antonio found all the materials for evil ready to his hand, as more than half the crew were ragamuffins "engaged by the run," as the phrase is at sea. But the surmises of Lambourne were much too vague for us to give them any tangible form as yet; and Antonio, our chief object of dread, was still secure in the bilboes in the cable-tier.