“Now when the Jane Ellen passed that way, if the Captain were not on deck and the Mate was commanding the ship, he liked to sail close to the Gateway instead of taking the shortest way to go around the islands, because he was not so old as the Captain, and he never had had so much as a glimpse of Torquillon.
“This time that I’ve begun to tell you about, the Captain was taking a nap, and Taffy had things his own way as they came into that part of the ocean.
“‘How’s the wind, Quartermaster?’ he said to the man at the wheel.
“‘Sou’west-by-south, sir,’ answered the Quartermaster.
“Taffy looked up at the sails and the clouds and out over the sea—as if he were making up his mind, instead of knowing all the time what he meant to do! Then he said to the Quartermaster:—
“‘Keep her as she is until we reach this point,’ and he made a little mark on the chart, right near the large island; ‘then we’ll make a long run to the south.’
“‘Ay, ay, sir,’ said the Quartermaster. But when the Mate turned away to walk for’ard, he drew up one side of his face so it was all bias, and winked at the Bos’n!
“Taffy went into his own cabin, and came out again with a long spy-glass in his hand. He walked to the foot of the foremast-shrouds and rested the spy-glass in the ratlines to steady it, and looked toward the place where the Gateway led into Torquillon’s Lair.
“And the Jane Ellen was sailing so fast that he hadn’t been looking long before he saw a little gray hump on the edge of the water, that he knew was the large island. Then he put down the glass and waited a little while. The next time he looked, both the island and the mainland showed plainly, with a little, little gap between.
“But he never could spend much time doing what he liked without being interrupted, so very soon he put down the glass and went below to see why Tom Green hadn’t polished the binnacle.