"What's that contraption you got there, Mr. Medbury?" he asked.
"One of the flanges of the pump gave 'way, sir," answered the mate, "and we couldn't use but one bar; so I rigged up that whiz-jig. It's better than one bar, and, besides, we can work it from the poop. If things should get much worse, the men would drown on the main-deck."
"Does the water gain on you?" the captain asked.
"About the same—inch by inch. But she's getting a little logy, it seems to me; and if the wind should go down or haul ahead—" He paused in gloomy silence.
"It won't," said the captain.
He walked to the rail and took down the marking of the log-line, and then went below to lay out his position on the chart. For two days he had had no sun to take an observation, and could trust only to dead-reckoning. Carefully he laid out his course and marked the distance traveled, then tried to calculate how far the heave of the sea and the set of the current had modified his right position. At last he pricked out the spot with all the appearance of certainty, made a light ring about the dot, and was rolling up his chart as his daughter came to his side.
"Where are we now, father?" she asked.
He looked at her and smiled.
"Just about here or hereabout," he told her.
She took the chart from his hand and unrolled it.