Captain Applegarth waved him aside.
“Where did you last sight the ship, Haldane?” he said, turning round abruptly to me. “How was she heading?”
“She bore about two points off our port quarter,” I replied as laconically. “I think, sir, she was running before the wind like ourselves, though steering a little more to the southwards.”
The skipper looked at the standard compass in front of the wheel-house on the bridge, and then addressed the helmsman.
“How are we steering now, quartermaster? The same course as I set at noon, eh?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Atkins, who still stood by the steam steering gear singlehanded. If it had been the ordinary wheel, unaided by steam-power, it would have required four men to move the rudder and keep the vessel steady in such a sea as was now running. “We’ve kept her pretty straight, sir, since eight bells on the same course, west by south, sir, half south.”
“Very good, quartermaster. Haldane, are you there?”
“Yes, sir,” said I, stepping up to him again, having moved away into the shadow under the lee of the wheel-house whilst he was speaking to Atkins. “Here I am, sir.”
“Was that vessel dropping us when we passed her, or were we going ahead of her?”
“She was running before the wind, sir, at a tangent to our course, and more to the southwards, moving through the water quicker than we were, until she luffed up just before that mist or fog bank shut her out from view. But—”