“Chart!” interposed the mate, making a step towards the sky-light, and trying to throw the tarpaulin that was hanging there over it whilst pretending to drag it off, “I see no chart here.”
“Why, here it is,” exclaimed the skipper, noticing one end of the roll, which projected from beneath the tarpaulin; and, pulling it out, he walked back again towards the binnacle, by the light of which he inspected my tracing of the ship’s path on the chart carefully.
“Pass the word forwards for Martin Leigh,” he cried out presently; and I, listening below in the waist, just under the break of the poop, to all that had transpired, very quickly answering to the call of my name as it was sung out by Jorrocks, mounted up the poop ladder, and advanced aft to where Captain Billings stood.
“Leigh,” said he, quietly, “I have sent for you to explain matters about this chart. Did you take an observation to-day as I told you?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“And did you agree with Mr Macdougall?”
“No, sir,” said I, unable to avoid the joke, “we didn’t agree—we fell out, as you saw!”
Jorrocks burst out laughing at this, and even the skipper himself couldn’t repress a smile—although he bit his lips to hide it, seeing the first mate scowling at me as if he could eat me up without salt, for he was afraid of the truth now coming out.
“Don’t be impudent, Leigh! you know what I mean well enough. Did your calculation agree with that of Mr Macdougall?” asked Captain Billings again.
“No, Captain Billings,” I answered, this time gravely enough. “I found that our dead reckoning was nearly thirty leagues out, some set of current having carried us considerably to the westward; but when I told this to Mr Macdougall, he called me a fool.”