“Aye,” responded the other; “so Master Tom will have ample opportunities within the next fortnight or so for studying all you told him about the Gulf-weed, for I’ve no doubt we’ll presently pass through lots of it.”
“Shall you shape a straight course for the Channel, sir?” asked the first mate, looking at his watch as he did so in a very self-satisfied sort of way, it seemed.
“You may well observe that time-piece of yours carefully,” said the captain with a sigh, although he smiled as he spoke. “On that little article depends all our navigation—that is, until we meet with some passing vessel to correct our reckoning, and I don’t suppose we shall come across many of these, for we’re out of the track of all voyaging over this part of the Atlantic save those homeward-bound from the Cape. I intend to make for Flores, the westernmost island of the Azores, as we’re short of water; besides, by my pursuing that course we shall get up into the trades, and bye and bye fetch the Gulf Stream, which will render our passage shorter to the Channel.”
“Very well, we’ll see,” said Mr Marline, unconsciously using his old stereotyped form of answer to almost everything.
“I believe,” cried Captain Miles laughing, “that if anybody asked you to accept a thousand pounds you’d reply, ‘I’ll see about it!’”
“You just try me and see,” replied the first mate drily to this remark, joining in the captain’s laugh; but I noticed that the other did not take up the offer.
Through our detention by the calm, in addition to the scurrying to and fro we had during the hurricane and the long time we remained a helpless log on the waters, it was now considerably more than two months since we had left the West Indies; and, as the Josephine did not sail so well now, besides having light and variable winds, it took us more than another fortnight to reach Flores and sight the Morro Grande—a mountain some three thousand feet in height, rising high in the clouds above Santa Cruz, the capital of the island.
But, for days before this, we sailed through that wonderful Sargasso Sea, the circumstances of whose being Mr Marline had explained to me during the fearful night we passed clinging to the capsized hull of the ship, exposed to the cruel wash of the pitiless waves; and, as we ploughed over this submerged meadow of sea-weed in the centre of the Atlantic, I could not help recalling the mangrove swamps and lagoons of the tropic island in which my childhood had been passed, wondering the while, too, whether the Josephine would not be reported as lost through the protraction of her voyage—for she was expected to reach England by the middle of September at the latest, and it was now October.
Why, if news came to Grenada that we were given up at Lloyd’s, poor dad and mother would be in a terrible way about me, I knew!
The day of the receipt of such intelligence would be a sad one at Mount Pleasant, where all had loved me and would miss me now more than ever.