“No, but there’s good reason for believing it may act in the same manner. Which of us is on watch? I suppose one must consider himself doing duty, even though he may be loafing.”
“Vance is the lookout, for you can’t be spared from the galley; but how are we to work it at night?” Ned asked. “I never thought of that before we started, an’ it’s goin’ to be kinder tough if a feller has to stay at the wheel two or three days without any sleep.”
“We must contrive to run into a harbor every day before sunset, and then all hands can turn in,” Vance suggested.
“There don’t seem to be much chance of that to-night. With no land in sight now, the Zoe couldn’t get very near a port between this and nightfall.”
“If it is necessary to run after dark we must contrive so that each has the proper amount of rest. By standing half-hour watches there wouldn’t be much chance of a fellow getting asleep at the wheel.”
“Have we anything aboard in the shape of a clock?” Ned asked. “I don’t reckon you’ve been able to make your watches go since they got such a soakin’?”
“They will need a watchmaker’s care before they can do very much toward keeping time,” Vance said ruefully as he looked at his, the hands of which had not moved since he landed in such a helpless fashion.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if the little clock in the pantry was all right,” Roy said after a moment’s thought. “It couldn’t have got very wet, and perhaps it needs only to be wound.”
He left the wheel-house on a tour of investigation as he ceased speaking, and returned a short time later with the article referred to.
“It’s all right,” he said as he hung it on a hook directly in front of the helmsman. “I don’t reckon it will be valuable as a time-keeper, inasmuch as we haven’t any very good idea of what hour it is now; but she will serve to show when the watches should be begun or ended.”