“Yes, sir,” said I, holding on tightly, however, to the bulwarks as I spoke, the Silver Queen just then giving a lurch to starboard that nearly pitched me overboard. “I’ll soon be able to stand up like you, sir.”
“Well, at all events, you’ve got plenty of pluck, Graham; and that’s the sort of material for making a good sailor. You were asking me last night about the course of the ship, if your sickness hasn’t put our talk out of your head. How far do you think we’ve run?”
“A good way, I suppose, sir,” I answered, “with that gale of wind.”
“Yes, pretty so so,” he said. “When the cap’en took the sun at noon to-day we were in latitude 48 degrees 17 minutes north and longitude just 8 degrees 20 west, or about two hundred miles off Ushant, which we’re to the southward of; so, we’ve run a goodish bit from our point of departure.”
“Oh, I remember all about that, sir,” I cried, getting interested, as he unfolded the chart which was lying on top of the cabin skylight and showed me the vessel’s position. “And we’ve come so far already?”
“Yes, all that,” replied he laughing as he moved his finger on the chart, pointing to another spot at least a couple of inches away from the first pencil-mark; “and we ought to fetch about here, my boy, at noon to-morrow—that is, if this wind holds good and no accident happens to us, please God.”
The ship at this time was going a good ten knots, he further told me, carrying her topgallants and courses again; for, although the sea was rough and covered with long rolling waves, that curled over their ridges into valleys of foam like half-melted snow, and it was blowing pretty well half a gale now from the north-west, to which point the wind had hauled round, it was keeping steady in that quarter, for the barometer remained high, and the Silver Queen, heading south-west by south, was bending well over so that her lee-side was flush almost with the swelling water. She was racing along easily, and presented a perfect picture, with the sun bringing out her white clouds of canvas in stronger contrast against the clear blue sky overhead and tumbling ocean around, and making the glass of the skylight and bits of brass-work about on the deck gleam with a golden radiance as it slowly sank below the horizon, a great globe of fire like a molten mass of metal on our weather bow, the vessel keeping always on the same starboard tack, for she wore round as the wind shifted.
Oh, yes, we were going; and so, evidently, Captain Gillespie thought when he came up the companion presently and took his place alongside Mr Mackay on the poop.
“This is splendid!” said he, rubbing his hands as usual and addressing the first mate, while I crept away further aft, holding on to the bulwarks to preserve my footing, the deck being inclined at such a sharp angle from the ship heeling over with the wind. “I don’t know when the old barquey ever went so free.”
“Nor I, sir,” replied the other with equal enthusiasm; “she’s fairly outdoing herself. We never had such a voyage before, I think, sir.”